SEEDs of Discord
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: AU: A change destroys the underpinning of Flay Allster's world as she stands on the bridge of the Archangel.


SEEDs of Discord

Flay Allster's heart was pounding defeaningly loud. She had not known a fear this horrible since the life boat from Heliopolis failed, stranding her and other Orb Union citizens in space with only a long, agonizing death by suffocation or freezing ahead of them. It had only been luck that had allowed Kira to save them.

A wave of heat seemed to flow through her body, exploding along her nerves. "Father!" she screamed as saw the Earth Union's 8th Fleet ship, the _Montgomery_ exploding from the view of the _Archangel's_ bridge.

Sai reached out, seemingly in slow motion to grab her shoulder. Up at the center of the command deck, Lacus's mouth opened in shock as the young girl seemed to be going berserk.

Captain Murrue Ramius's eyes were dragged off the horrible view of the stolen G-Series weapon destroying the last of the vanguard fleet with its ZAFT friends and allies. "Wha-?" she started to ask.

"FATHER! NOOOOOOO!" Flay screamed, her copper hair flailing around her as she tried to refuse the reality of her father dying in the battle outside. Her heart was beating so hard from her fear... from her abject terror at losing the last family she had. "NOOOOOOOOO!" Her heart was beating so fast, a cacophony of drums in a panic that it seemed it must burst. The heat was spreading through her body, as if she was a star that was burning up from the inside out.

"Flay!" Sai called as his hands finally gripped her shoulders from behind.

In a blur of motion she whirled, and with a strength she did not know, threw Sai across the bridge. Not even realizing what she had done, she threw herself to the far side of the bridge to the window, beating on it as hard and fast as she could. "Father!" she screamed again.

Murrue stared at the girl's fists that were pounding on the solid, armored window in a blur, faster than she could follow. "Continue operations! We're in the middle of the battle!" she ordered the rest of the bridge.

That was when Natarle decided to take drastic steps to save their lives. "ZAFT forces-" Natarle said, beginning _Archangel's_ transmission of essentially holding Lacus Klyne hostage and that they could not guarantee her safety. That forced the retreat of the La Creuset ZAFT Team, bringing a momentary peace as Miriallia tries to help the young man thrown by Flay's outburst. Sai was groaning in pain, as it seemed his shoulder had either been broken or dislocated.

The 'hostage' was more worriedly looking at the young girl pounding on the armored window of the bridge. "But I thought she was a Natural?" Lacus finally said sadly.

Murrue and Natarle both jerked in surprise, even as the rest of the crew looked stunned. The 2iC of the _Archangel_ demanded loudly, "What do you mean?"

"She's reacting like a Coordinator child, unable to control her reflexes," the Coordinator from PLANT explained. "But those small children soon learn to control themselves."

"But she's a Natrual. I'd heard she even hates most Coordinators!" Murrue said softly.

"Flay Allster! Shut the hell up!" Natarle suddenly shouted loud as she chambered a round in her military pistol.

The young girl looked up in stunned surprise. "Wha-?" she managed, before tears overcame her again. She clutched her arms to her torsa, as if she was holding in her sobs.

"Captain? I need to take Sai to the infirmary," Miriallia called out.

"Ensign Natarle? I think it would be best if I approached her... carefully," Lacus finally said. It went without saying that she was the only one that even had a hope of handling a Coordinator's reflexes and strength.

When Flay flinched away from the Coordinator and then suddenly lashed out, Lacus caught her with her surprisingly fast and strong hands.

"Okay. I'm going to lock them both up until we can sort out this mess," Natarle said to Murrue, who nodded in agreement.

* * *

Flay awoke later, her voice scratchy and her sinuses hurting. Strange, she was still wearing her dress. What had happened-?

Suddenly, her father's death crashed in upon her suddenly like an angry, black wave that threatened to suck her down. She tried to bite back her tears, only succeeding after fifteen minutes. Finally, in anger she finally rolled out of her bunk unsteadily.

She must look horrible, she thought to herself. She fumbled with her outfit, trying to get it off quickly. With a rip, she tore two buttons off the blouse. She'd loved this dress... long ago and before this whole mess had started. She ripped it two more times, but finally was able to slip into the tiny shower stall.

She exited that after a too long shower that one of the _Archangel's_ officers would probably yell at her about, but she just could not find it in herself to care. With a serious look of distaste, she tried to pull the blouse and dress back on, but only succeeded at ripping it one more time.

"Damn it. What a cheap piece of junk!" she shouted out finally, berating the expensive clothing. She gripped her head tightly in frustration. Why was everything so hard right now? She was still sitting there five minutes later when the door opened suddenly. With a squawk of outrage, she covered her breasts that were barely covered by her ripped blouse.

"Flay Allster, if that's who you really are, you will follow me now," Natarle Badgiruel demanded from the entry way. She had a pistol pointed at Flay, clearly intent on shooting her if she so much as blinked wrong.

"What?" the young girl asked stupidly. "What is going on?"

"I didn't say you could talk. Put your hands on your head and move it before I have to shoot you!" the officer shouted harshly.

* * *

"Flay is a Coordinator? But that doesn't make sense." Kira looked confused, lost and hut. He had promised Flay that he would protect her father and he had failed abysmally. "She would know if she was one, wouldn't she?"

Sai just shrugged his non-broken shoulder. "You didn't see her on the bridge. She flung me hard enough that I broke my shoulder and then did some really weird things."

The pilot of Strike Gundam just frowned as he landed lightly in front of the secure conference room. At his knock, a guard let them in where Natarle and Murrue were sitting across a table from Flay. She looked much worse the wear as she was wrapped in a blanket, but you could see her torn clothing.

"What's going on here? Have you hurt Flay?" Kira shouted, incensed by what he thought they had done.

All three women looked at him in surprise. Murrue took a quick glance at Flay as she realized what she was seeing. She stood up and said, "Kira, wait! We have done nothing to Flay other than confine herself to her quarters."

"What happened then?" Sai exclaimed almost as angrily.

"I can't control my strength," Flay finally said softly. She looked like she was about to cry.

"Captain!" the _Archangel's_ medic called out as he entered the room in a hurry.

"Yes?" Murrue had been expecting him for a while.

"Her blood test... is abnormal," the medic finally said. "It's not quite like a Natural or a Coordinator's blood."

"Huh? I heard this crazy rumor that people are saying Flay is some sort of Coordinator," Kira said, looking very confused.

"I'm not! I'm not a Coordinator!" Flay screeched out angrily.

"But it's becoming more _like_ a Coordinator's blood. The first test, from four hours ago was a fifty percent match. Now it is a nearly seventy-five percent match. It's like her body is flushing the normal chemical balances within her body to switch it for the Coordinator bloodtype." The medic looked frustrated. This was a very simplified explanation.

"Damn. Perhaps some sort of treatment to let Coordinators spy more effectively," Natarle exclaimed as she slapped her hand down on the table.

"I'm not a spy! Co- Coordinators are-" Flay looked over ashamedly at Kira for a second. "Coordinators are freely allowed to live and visit Orb or its colonies! So why would anyone need to hide being one of them there?"

Murrue held up her hand to stop the conversation. "And the rest of the bridge crew?"

"I would say that I am very confident that no one on the bridge is a Coordinator." He frowned, then sighed. "But I did find one person that has irregularities. A one percent match of the Coordinator blood typing. The thing is, she definitely only has Natural reflexes and strength."

"Who?" Natarle snarled. Damn, this could be bad for stopping spies and infiltrators.

"Uh, it's the young civilian Miriallia Haw. I'm sorry captain. I could be mis-reading what I'm seeing very badly," the medic said finally.

"Natarle, keep an eye on her. I doubt she'd be a spy. There was no way that either of them could have planned to be on this ship during that fight." Then Murrue turned back to Flay. "You, on the other hand, have definitely exhibited Coordinator level strength and speed."

Sai and Kira both gasped at that.

They were all surprised when Flay burst into tears. "I'm not- I can't be a Coordinator!" she said in a muffled tone through her tears. "Daddy loves me. He hates Coordinators!" she shrieked.

"Captain, I don't think Miss Allster is in any shape to deal with this right now. She's just lost her father after all." Mu looked very pensive at the thought.

* * *

"Please be quiet, Miss Clyne," Kira said quietly. Everyone had finally gone to sleep. He had decided that he could not allow Lacus to be used as a hostage again. So he was going to get her out of here and back to people that would not threaten such an innocent.

As they were passing Flay's room, her door suddenly opened. Lacus and Kira both froze with their eyes open wide as they saw the disturbed-looking Flay taking in the scene wearing just a long shirt for pajamas. "Going for a walk?" she groused while rubbing her eyes.

"Ah, yeah. We just couldn't sleep," Kira said lamely.

Flay looked over the two very guilty looking kids for a long moment. "Well, don't do something stupid like try to sneak off the ship," she snapped out, closing her door.

Kira and Lacus shared a moment of surprise with each other, then continued on their way. After their meeting with Sai and changing into normal suits, they launched in the Strike Gundam.

* * *

Murrue stared at Kira intently during the 'hearing.' "The verdict is guilty. The sentence is immediate execution."

Kira gulped nervously. "Wha-?"

The captain of the ship waited a long moment for it to sink in. "Or it would have been if you had been a member of the military. As you are a civilian, that will not happen. You will be confined to your quarters for a week. Remember to think through your actions thoroughly in the future. Dismissed."

Mu narrowed his eyes in thought after Kira left the conference room. "That leaves us in a bad situation. We don't have a pilot for the Strike any more."

Natarle nodded reluctantly. "I hate to agree, but we are defenseless without him."

"Possibly."

Mu and Natarle shared an incredulous look. "Possibly?" Natarle asked querulously.

"Mu, if you could please ask Flay Allster to meet with me?" Murrue asked steadily.

"You _sneaky_ girl. But she's a total clutz-" the mobilearmor pilot started to reply.

"Just go and get her already, please." Murrue waited for Flay, letting Natarle leave.

There was a knock at the door, letting her know that Flay and Mu were there. "Thank you Mu. Miss Allster, if I could talk to you?"

"If you are going to ask me about 'becoming' a Coordinator, I still don't know anything," Flay said mulishly.

"No. That is really fairly irrelevant at this point. The more pressing concern is that I need a pilot for the Strike desperately. And it requires a Coordinator to fly it." Murrue paused a second, wishing she could look over to Mu for a bit of guidance from the higher ranking officer. "Be that as it may, with the way that Kira acted I can not depend on him absolutely in this situation. Maybe you won't be able to pilot the Strike, but I'd rather have two arrows in my quiver than one uncertain one."

* * *

Kira was grumbling to himself as he coasted down the hallway of the _Archangel_ toward the landing/launching bay where the Strike was stored. He now had a greater appreciation for Lacus's confinement. He was wanting to get out of his room, so had 'volunteered' for extra programming and maintenance. What he found surprised him.

Murdoch and Mu were in front of the Strike's hatch, talking to someone inside the mobilesuit. "What's going on?" Kira asked.

"Oh, hey Kira!" Mu called out. "Just having Flay try out the Strike in simulation mode."

"Flay?" the Coordinator asked stupidly.

Mudoch nodded. "I don't think she's actually up to combat flight yet, but she's coming along pretty good. Its even been helping with her _coordination_," he paused at that, "quite a bit."

"You know, I'm right here?" Flay cried out in frustration as she was 'killed' in the simulation. "Kira, this OS is garbage! How can you operate it effectively?" She had pulled up the keyboard and was rewriting one of the functions again.

"You should have seen it when I first tried to use it. You could barely walk around without falling over," he replied with a nervous laugh.

"It's way too dependent on switching between command modes with finangly complicated work-arounds that should really be more automated." She was very focused, going over the command trees at very high speeds. She didn't even realize that she was working at speeds far in excess of anything she'd ever done before while on a far more complicated project.

"Eh, well, yeah. Luckily, I can switch them around fast enough so that it's not a problem," Kira replied nervously.

"How did you pass Professor Miller's class? He would never have allowed for that much sloppiness!" she retorted.

"Wasn't he the application programming Dean at the technical academy?" he asked, thinking back to Heliopolis and the different professors. "I was on the more technical operating system and robotics course."

"That explains it then. Idiot OS programmers trying to make it do everything in under the sun!"

Mu and Murdoch shared a bemused look with each other. "So what does all that mean?" the mobilearmor pilot finally asked.

"Oh, sorry sir! I mean, Mu. It's an old programming argument. Should all functions be part of the OS or should they be separate application modules at a higher level? The Strike's OS basically has everything in it, but you can't change parts of it very easily at all. You have to understand the whole thing to make any changes." Kira shrugged. "Programmers have been arguing over it for over a hundred years which is better."

"Only if they are total idiots. You use the right type of programming for the right situation," the Neo-Coordinator girl snapped out. "Some things work better at the OS level and some things should never be allowed anywhere near the OS level at all."

"Essentially true," Kira said as he nodded. "Let me see what you've been changing." He slipped into the cockpit next to Flay and started reading over her shoulder as the command trees started scrolling across. "Stop there. Why did you do that way?"

Mu floated a bit out of earshot and around the corner. "I wouldn't have pegged Miss Allster as a geek," he said bemusedly to Murdoch.

The rough looking technician nodded. "Well, she was going to that technical academy with the other kids. They don't offer much in the way of poly-science degrees, do they? So she must have been learning _something_ technical."

Mu floated back up, to see that Kira has swapped place with Flay and was running through a simulation. "See? That function doesn't really work, because the Strike doesn't articulate correctly that way. It's very slow and awkward."

"I see that know. But that command tree and sequence to twist and fire to the right is way too complicated."

Mu backed away very quickly. He didn't want to get in the middle of that.

* * *

"Detecting N-Jammer emissions!" Sai called out from the sensor board of the bridge.

"Sound level one battle stations!" Captain Murrue Ramius shouted out.

Kira and Flay both looked up at the alert in the cafeteria where they had ended up after working on the Strike for a long while. "I have to head to the Strike," Kira said then stuffed two more bites in his mouth. The captain had told them that he was the primary pilot for now.

Flay nodded sourly. While she could probably actually fly the Strike now, Kira was easily twice as good as she was. She headed out of the cafeteria, munching on her own sandwich. What ever had happened to her had increased her appetite a bit, something that Coordinators had to watch for. The extra strength and speed had to come at some cost, she had found out. Though at least with all the simulator and typing time, her reflexes seemed to be finally under control.

She just wished she'd been able to fix her pink blouse and dress. The pink 'volunteer pilot's' uniform of the Earth Alliance wasn't very flattering, she thought.

"Mr. Kira said he was going to protect us!" a very young girl exclaimed to Flay as she was spotted walking down the hall.

"I'm sure he will. You need to go to your quarters now though." Flay tried to smile, but it seemed like her happiness had just drained away.

She entered the bridge quietly, listening to the three mobilesuits work as a team to attack. Natarle seemed to know what to do to keep the Blitz away, but they weren't aiming and firing quickly enough to really hurt the mobilsuit, just force it away.

She suddenly slipped into one of the empty gunnery seats, her eyes flickering to all of the controls faster than a Natural human could have hoped to have done. She took over the station and switched it to computer assisted manual control.

"Blitz is headed right for the bridge!" Murrue shouted out. "Recall Kira now!"

Before that order could even be followed up, the left Gotfried's fired, nearly pasting the Blitz. "Almost!" Flay murmured. She fired again, melting the Blitz's left arm off even as the Strike arrived to nearly finish off the stealth machine. The Duel then followed to continue its battle with him.

"Good work, Crewman Romero! That was some fine shooting," Captain Ramius exclaimed.

"Excuse me, Captain? That Gotfried was taken over from the secondary control station," the gunnery controller said, looking over to see an unfamiliar form still trying to hit the rapidly retreating Blitz. "Who is she?"

"Good job, Flay. It looks like you've got a grip on your reflexes," Murrue said politely, trying to hide her surprise.

"I almost got him. I had him _dead_ to rights," she hissed, firing one more time. "Damn. He's too far away."

The captain realized suddenly that Flay wasn't trying to drive him off, she was trying to kill him for killing her own father. "Flay, why don't you head down to the landing bay and meet up with Kira."

"Fine," she groused as she stood up to leave the bridge.

* * *

"I heard the _Archangel_ actually damaged the Blitz," Kira was saying to Mu. He had his helmet under his arm.

"Really? Maybe that'll make things easier for us next time. It'll be nice not to be so heavily outnumbered!" Mu said with a roguish grin. "I mean, you almost finished off the Duel, too."

That was when Flay floated through the hatch. She waved to both of them. "How did it go?" she asked curiously.

"The new modifications seemed to work, other than the multi-targeting option. I think that needs to be rewritten entirely. So I don't suggest using it except against missiles that won't try to evade," Kira said. "It's easily five percent more responsive now. You were right, it was too complicated to do some things manually. I think Lt. La Flaga could even pilot it now if he wanted to."

"I'd need practice first, but that's heartening to hear. Having a mobilesuit that only Coordinators could use isn't going to help Earth against ZAFT aggression," Mu said seriously.

"Yeah, and I heard we are finally meeting up with the full 8th Fleet finally," Kira said hopefully. Maybe now he could leave this ship and the military behind.

* * *

"So you were the pilot of the Strike?" Admiral Halberton asked Kira as he entered the hanger holding Strike.

"Yes, sir. Though Flay has been practicing in the simulator," the young Coordinator said seriously. "I wouldn't want her to be the pilot either. War... it's just wrong." The young man had entered the landing bay in a half-hearted way to say goodbye to the machine that had so impacted his life.

"Yet you protected this ship magnificently. Sometimes it is not about finding what you are fighting for or against, but what you are fighting to protect. I'd think about that, Kira Yamato." He tipped his hat in an unofficial salute. "If you'll pardon me, I have another meeting to attend."

Kira stared at the Strike in deep thought.

Halberton and his assistant Captain Hoff continued on their way, entering a semi-private quarters. "Miss Flay Allster?" the admiral asked. He _thought_ he remembered meeting her at a gala three years ago on Earth.

"Who are you?" the young girl asked nervously.

"I'm Admiral Halberton and I'm here to see if you have anything to add about your... sudden awakening as a Coordinator," the admiral asked.

"No. Not really. Just one moment, I'm a normal girl trying to stupidly save my father's life by threatening an innocent and then the next my nerves are all afire and everything was moving too slowly. It took days to not rip my clothing just getting dressed," Flay responded in an almost monotone voice. Her deep red hair was more limp than normal. She'd been neglecting herself after the crushing reality of _being_ a Coordinator really bore down on her. "So I have no idea who did this to me. My father hated Coordinators and would definitely never do this to me," she finished finally.

Halberton nodded sadly. "Yes, he was one of those that was not... very tolerant of Coordinators, wasn't he?"

"He hated them." Flay's cold eyes were staring at the admiral with unrelenting intensity.

"Do you hate Coordinators?" Captain Hoff asked suddenly.

"I might," she replied tonelessly.

"And now that you _are_ a Coordinator?" Halberton asked intently.

"Then I might hate myself the most," she said while still looking the admiral straight in the eye with no trace of guile.

* * *

Sai, Tolle, Mirriallia, Kuzzey and Flay were all looking at their 'discharge' papers. Flay noted that hers even stated that she'd be commended for actions of valor under combat for driving off an attack on the ship.

"Civilians aren't allowed to operate military equipment and ships. This is all a legal fiction so that no one gets in trouble." Natarle shrugged. It all a bunch of sophistry that Captain Hoff had said they had to do.

"I would like to volunteer to join the Earth Alliance," Flay suddenly said. "I don't have anything else." She looked a bit sad at that thought. And maybe she could get revenge against ZAFT for killing her father. Her eyes turned hard at that thought.

All of the other kids looked at each other. Sai especially looked troubled. Then he stepped up. "I'd like to volunteer too."

Sai, Miriallia and Tolle found Kira about to board the shuttle to go over to Halberton's flagship. "Kira! You need this before you can leave!" Sai called out as he held out the paper.

Kira noted they were all still in uniform. "What's this?"

They explained about the discharge papers and their decision to enlist to help the Earth Alliance and continue to protect the ship.

Kira stared in shock as his friends went willingly back ino the ship and possibly even into battle soon. Could he really abandon them?

* * *

Flay was settling into the Strike's cockpit, warming up the controls and setting them to her customized configuration. Kira, as the other pilot, had a few things tweaked to the way he liked to pilot things that she just could not stand. "Flay Allster in Strike, ready to launch," she called out over the communicator.

Murrue blinked in shock even as Miriallia, Sai and Kuzzey entered the bridge. "What?"

Mu La Flaga was settling into his Mobius Zero. "Flay? Are you sure you are up to this?"

"We don't have any more time. The more time we waste here, the more people will die!" she snarled out. "Permission to launch!"

"We haven't been giving orders," the captain of the ship protested. But Flay was right. "Very well. Launch, but prepare to retreat to _Archangel_ at a moment's notice." She then ordered a channel to Halberton to be opened immediately.

The linear accelerator cycled through the red warning lights, then launched when they all switch to green. "Flay Allster, Strike Gundam launching," she said with a very dry throat.

Mu launched moments behind her in his Mobius Zero. "Try to stay alive, kid," he suggested.

"I was planning on that. Any strategies?" she asked hurriedly as the Strike spun towards the fighting as the first 8th Fleet cruiser exploded.

"Well, do something to even up our firepower disparity," Mu complained. He rocketed off to destroy an unwary GINN and announcing his presence on the battlefield.

Flay frowned, but nodded at his thought. It was the numbers of GINNs that were really dangerous to the fleet with their heavy assault weapons, she realized. What could she do to them though? She was a rookie-

That no one had noticed yet. She quickly brought up the multi-targeting program, thinking very hard to lock onto the nearest six GINNs. "Strike Gundam, attacking!" she shouted out even as the Strike started firing rapidly with its beam rifle, shredding the first three GINNs and winging a fourth. The last two dodged easily. "Now I bet it becomes hard," she muttered to herself.

Kira floated into the _Archangel's_ docking bay, looking to get ready to launch in Strike, only to realize it had already launched along with Mu's Mobius Zero. "What?" Wait, if both units were gone, that means that _Flay_ was out there. He dashed to the bridge to find out what was going on.

La Creuset was frowning. The battle had suddenly turned as the _Archangel's_ mobilesuit and mobilearmor were making an impact to blunt the effectiveness of the ZAFT assault. There was Mu La Flaga, of course, but the Strike was not flying like he expected. He flipped his high performance CGUE out of the way of Mu's assault. What was different about the Strike?

With a flash, he realized what it was. The Strike was firing with deadly accuracy, _killing_ his GINNs as quickly as possible. That was an entirely different pilot and was trying to redress the battle strength.

"There you are, Strike!" Yzak shouted in a fury. That pilot had nearly killed him last time and he would return the favor. He charged, ready to swoop to the right when the pilot dodged that way, so he was quite surprised when the Strike dodged left while firing its beam rifle, nearly hitting him. "Damn it!"

He really wished that Dearka or Athrun were here to help him. Strike was always a pain to fight against. Though, he _was_ fighting differently. It was less polished, he thought to himself.

"Don't worry, Yzak, I've got your back," Nichol called out. He was really missing his Blitz. But the damage had been pretty severe and it was not repaired yet.

"No, stay back!" the silver-haired Coordinator yelled out. Nichol was no match for the Strike in that GINN.

Flay almost hit Nichol on his first shot, shearing off his mobilesuit's arm. "Die, bastard!"

"Shit!" Nichol shouted out.

The Strike then smashed a knee in the GINN's head, sending it spinning. Without a pause, she spun back and torso-shotted the GINN, causing it to explode.

"NICHOL!" Yzak shouted. "You bastard! You're dead!" The Duel suddenly charged at full speed, forcing the Strike to retreat quickly or be destroyed.

"NO!" Flay screamed, working her controls frantically to dodge the vengeful Duel as it chased her through the fleet.

La Creuset and La Flaga's fight interrupted Yzak's duel, splitting them up among the battle. They were going at it hammer and tongs, their weapons unleashing a destructive swath through the whole battlefield as LaCreuset started to peel La Flaga's gun pods off one at a time again.

That was when Aegis appeared next to Strike as Athrun opened his com. "Kira, I'll destroy you now as I promised!" he shouts, remembering their promise in their last battle.

"I'm not Kira, you idiot!" Flay shouted back, ducking behind another Earth Alliance ship and quickly pot-shotting another GINN as it was about to destroy anther Earth Alliance ship. "But I'll happily kill you for murdering my father!" she shouted as she came back around and fired when she spotted the red mobilearmor, missing horribly. "Damn it!"

"Who the hell are you? Well, Natural, you are in way over your head," Athrun snarled, firing his main beam cannon which the Strike absorbed on its beam resistant shield.

"Well, I _used_ to be a Natural," Flay muttered to herself. This wasn't turning out very well. She just wasn't as talented as Kira and it was showing. She would have been surprised to find out that she was actually better than most Coordinator pilots for ZAFT on their first sortie. And she had something that Kira seemed to lack entirely, which was a killer instinct.

She had no realization that Athrun and Yzak were the modern equivalent of fighter aces in high performance jets, with dozens of kills of their own. Just surviving them would be a major feat for any pilot.

Dearka spun away as the Strike nearly mowed over his Buster in its haste. "What?" He slapped his assault rifle and switched it to sniper mode and tried to hit the Strike, but it was trying to avoid the Duel and Aegis like a maddened hummingbird.

Over the open Earth Alliance frequency, she heard the loss of the flagship sacrificing itself to stop one of the ZAFT ships ramming attempt.

"Flay! You need to retreat back to _Archangel_! We are preparing to descend to Earth!" Miriallia ordered from _Archangel_.

"But the 8th Fleet?" Flay said, balking at the order.

"They are going to try to retreat after we are gone, but there's not much hope of that. So we need to try to evade to Earth. Commander La Flaga is already back."

So that was how Flay ended up playing a very fast paced game of 'run away and don't die' with the Duel and Aegis Gundam who had managed to find her. She was starting to panic as the pilots were single mindedly trying to kill her.

"Damn you, stay still and die!" Yzak shouted as he took pot-shots further and further away as the Strike headed desperately towards its home ship that was starting to really enter the atmosphere. The pilot was reacting with superhuman speed, but was not acting at all like the last fights.

"What are you doing, Yzak?" Athrun shouted as he started to pull up to not fall to Earth. "Get a grip!" He was far higher up and flying back up to the ZAFT ships as the 8th Fleet was disengaging messily.

"I'm going to destroy that pilot if its the last thing I do today!" the silver-haired Coordinator almost screamed. He could not imagine letting the Strike go after it had killed Nichol.

"That's not even the same pilot! It's some girl!" the Aegis pilot snapped back.

"What?" was the Duel's pilot's response. But he was already too low, starting to glow as the air caught him. In desperation, he turned around and jetted as fast back up. For long agonizing seconds he held seemingly still, and then started to slowly climb.

That was when one of the last two ZAFT cruisers exploded under the combined firepower of the remaining 8th Fleet in retreat.

Athrun scowled as he realized they had even failed to destroy the whole fleet like planned. La Creuset was going to be upset.

"Bastard! He's getting away after killing Nichol!" Yzak shouted.

"What?" Athrun shouted out. "When did that happen?" He checked out the remaining GINNs (all three of them) and realized that Yzak must be right. "Nichol is dead? Just like that?"

"And that pilot did it! Hell, I think _she_ killed almost every GINN we lost today," the Duel's pilot snarled, causing blood to drip from his bandaged face.

Down below, the Strike was trying to desperately close with the _Archangel._ "I'm not going to make it and the heat is rising rapidly!" Flay screamed out.

On the bridge, Murrue and Kira shared a worried look. Kira walked over to the communication console. "Flay, have you engaged the reentry mode?"

"What? No! I haven't had time to read the whole manual yet," the Neo-Coordinator said in fright.

Kira quickly explained how to set the Strike to reentry even as the Archangel diverted to barely recover the mobilesuit. The Strike landed on the outside of the reentering battleship.

"So hot," Flay complained, panting heavily. If this was what battle was like, she was sure she didn't want to have anything to do with it. She fumbled for the controls on her flight suit, trying to flush cooling air through it to minimal effect.

"Flay, you are doing good," Kira tried to say soothingly. "Only another five minutes, then we can get you inside."

So very quiet that even Kira almost failed to hear it over the open microphone, she said, "I'm scared. I'm so scared." Her eyes were wide and dilated in pure terror.

"You'll be all right. I promise," the young coordinator said. He dashed out of the bridge and headed to the nearest airlock that would allow him access to the area where the Strike had landed on top of. "Bridge, how long until we can send out a rescue group to the Strike?" he asked through the com on the panel next to the door.

Murrue narrowed her eyes as she took in the descent vectors on her command console. "Another three minutes until we are deep enough and slow enough to even attempt anything."

Finally given the go ahead, Kira rushed out to the kneeling Strike, lowering its cockpit cable that whipped around dangerously in the winds. He managed to get his foot in its stirrup and with a jerk got it to start reeling him up to the cockpit. He had to push off the deadly hot armor with his free foot as the wind jerked him around. He ignored the pain from the cable cutting his hand from the cruel, cutting force.

Finally, he opened the hatch with a blast of frigid air. Flay's heavily dilated eyes suddenly shrank to pinpoint dots as the frigid air struck her overheated body. With a last moment to clutch her arms in a reflexive move to protect herself from the cold, Flay passed out in her harness.

* * *

Flay's eyes blinked open as she noted an ache across her entire body. "Wha-what happened?" she asked groggily.

"You need to stay there a bit, Flay. According to Kira, your body needs as much nutrition as it can absorb from that drip for right now. It'll speed your recovery," the medic said he came to push her back to the ground.

"Oh! Kira?" she asked in surprise.

"I kicked him and Sai out of here so that you could rest peacefully." At his explanation, Flay closed her eyes to relive her nightmares where a dangerous mobilesuit chased her mercilessly.

Kira was locking the Strike back into place in the landing bay after walking it in after their landing. The rest of the ground crew was going over the maintenance of the Strike and the Archangel's two new Sky Graspers.

Sai looked up at his friend as he lowered himself down via the lift-cable. "Kira!" he called out while waving.

"Oh! Sai! What's up?" Kira asked as he dismounted the cable.

"What took so long? I've been waiting for over twenty minutes," the sandy-haired boy asked as he fidgeted with his glasses.

Kira just shrugged uncomfortably. "I was just adjusting the Strike to be able to move around on that sand out there. That would have been a total pain to do in the middle of a battle."

"So... what's up between you and Flay?" Sai asked uncomfortably.

Kira had the decency to blush and looked embarrassed. "Nothing... really." He sighed. "I think she's pretty and I _thought_ she someone that could maybe get to know, but now... I don't know. And then I found out you were engaged."

With a pained expression, Sai nodded. "Me too. I'm having- I'm having some issues with Flay right now." The Coordinator raised an eyebrow at that, but waited for Sai continued. "I didn't think being Coordinator would make any difference. But I guess it's different when it's your fiancée rather than a friend. I'm a sick bastard, I suppose."

"What? But Sai, you were one of the first people to stand up for me!" Kira exclaimed.

"And intellectually, I know it _shouldn't_ matter, but her being a Coordinator- It's making my skin crawl. And I hate myself for it. I should be _better_ than that." He was actually crying, finally falling to his knees. "What sort of person am I?"

"Sai? You are trying. And that says volumes about you." Kira carefully patted his shoulder. "I think you'll win, you see. Your my good friend Sai, after all."

The other boy climbed to his feet. "Thanks, Kira."

* * *

Flay was suddenly awoke by the battle stations alarm. "Wha-?" she asked sleepily. She quickly threw on her (now very hated) uniform and headed to the bridge, just beating Mu La Flaga there.

"Hey? Aren't you still on the injured list?" the pilot asked.

"I feel fine now," she retorted.

"It's a jeep driving straight for the _Archangel_," Natarle noted aloud. "Wait, she's pointing at her radio."

"I have their signal," Miriallia said from the communication console.

"Earth Alliance ship, be aware that you will be attacked shortly by ZAFT Desert Tiger forces. Try not to die too quickly," the female voice said over the radio. The click signaled that they were done as the jeep turned and drove off.

"Desert Tiger?" Murrue said to herself in thought.

Mu nodded. "This could be bad. The SkyGraspers aren't flight ready yet.

"Tell Murdoch to expedite launching one of the SkyGraspers, Commander La Flaga. Do everything you can to help with that. Kira will prepare to sortie out in Strike. If it is the Desert Tiger, he will probably attack with his BuCUEs. I suggest attack with Sword Striker for maximum duration," the captain decided aloud.

"What about me?" Flay asked intently. Her left eye was twitching a bit.

"We could use her help in gunnery," Natarle said helpfully with a falsely saccharine smile. The better to keep watch on her, after all.

"That will be your active duty station, but you will assist Murdoch and Mu on readying SkyGrasper 1," Murrue ordered. "Set level 2 battle stations. Prepare for anti-mobilesuit combat as quickly as possible."

* * *

Kira was grumbling a bit as he made sure the Strike Gundam was ready for combat.

"At least you get to go out. The Captain probably still thinks I'm out of it due to passing out on re-entry," Flay said in complaint as she helped run a computer diagnostic on SkyGrasper 1." Was it really only fourteen hours since the battle of the 8th Fleet? And only nine days since her father had been killed? One date-time time zone difference mucked up everyone's time-sense.

"She's probably right. Kira is more than capable for this fight," Mu said jauntily. "Besides, its not like he's trying to prove how good he is. He's fighting to protect everyone here."

Flay turned her head up to look at Kira, looking at him intently. She continued to stare as he turned around under the pressure of her gaze. Her face was unreadable, a blank slate of deep thought. "I see."

It was only an hour later when the bridge sounded 'level one battle stations.' Kira grabbed a last sip from his cup. He was stopped as Flay grabbed his arm.

"Kira. I-" Flay seemed to be struggling to say something. "Thanks." Within her was a war of conflicting desires. She was terrified of getting back into the Strike but her anger was driving her to kill and keep killing ZAFT soldiers.

"Don't worry. Like Mu said, I'm going to protect everyone," the Coordinator said with a slightly tight smile.

Flay had never felt smaller in her life. Was this the ugly truth of herself? A murderous coward? She tried to hide her pain with a smile, but she could tell that he saw through it. She headed to the elevator and the bridge.

Just outside of the bridge, she saw Sai. Her fiancé had a tense expression on his face. "Flay, I know this is probably a bad time, but I couldn't put it off." He closed his eyes for a second. "Just so you know, this is because of me and my problems. I'm- I'm breaking off our engagement. I'm sorry."

"Why?" she asked, looking hurt by his actions.

"Like I said, it's because of me. I- I really can't explain it. I'm too ashamed. Ask Kira. Maybe he can explain it," the bespectacled boy said. He turned and headed in the bridge, ending the conversation.

Suddenly, Flay had the overwhelming desire to smash things. People. Places. It was a good thing they were going into battle. She followed Sai into the bridge and took a gunnery seat.

"How long until the enemy comes over the ridge line?" Murrue asked from her captain's chair.

"Estimating ten minutes," Natarle replied from the CiC. "All weapons report ready to deploy instantly. CWIS is ready to interdict based on projected contact point Alpha. Everyone was tense as they waited.

As the time got very near, "Contact in ten-nine- Now! Three enemy assault helicopters."

"Weapons free! Fire!" Murrue shouted.

The overconfident ZAFT pilots had no warning when the parked battleship opened up on them. "What? The ship was ready for us!" the first pilot screamed, just before his air ship was destroyed.

Andrew Waltfield's smile dipped. "Damn, guess we walked into that. Order the BuCUEs forward." It must have been warned of their approach.

The quadruped mobilesuits skidded forward, firing missiles and cannons as they hoved over the ridge at the _Archangel._ The first one was just about to unload a deadly, close-in salvo of missiles when the Strike suddenly exploded out of its camouflage _beside it _and rose to its full height and bisected the hapless ZAFT soldier using its anti-ship beam-sword.

The soldiers were shocked, as they hadn't expected that. That was when the battleship launched Mu in a SkyGrasper with an Aile Striker pack attached. The Hawk of Endymion lived up to his ace reputation, gunning down the last assault chopper almost instantly.

The SkyGrasper turned and fired at a BuCUE, but it was too fast. "Slippery little devils, aren't they?" Mu commented aloud.

Kira had to agree, they really were giving him a workout, though the odds seemed to be balanced at this point. He took another swipe at a BuCUE but it again slid again to the side. Kira was about to jet after it when one of the cannons from the _Archangel_ hit where it was dodging to.

"Stupid, using the same dodge three times in a row," Flay muttered with an insane, evil grin on her face. Her fingers were flying across the controls.

Kira blinked, not realizing that the _Archangel_ would be firing into his fight. It seemed whoever was manning that gun was a pretty fair shot, so he was not worried.

Andrew Waltfield was thinking the same thinking. "Well, we aren't going to be able to capture that. Signal for a long range bombardment to try and destroy that ship."

Off in the distance, the ZAFT landship fired long range explosive shells. They streaked off into the night, even as the landship moved it's position in anticipation of a counter attack.

"Incoming!" Natarle shouted even as she had the CWIS try to gun down the explosive shells.

Kira and Mu heard that, both turning away from the retreating BuCUEs.

"Damn you!" Mu shouted, firing the particle beam cannon and managing to hit one.

Flay looked up to see the incoming attack through the blast windows, eyes wide in terror. Was this what the GINN pilots she had killed felt just before they died? This overwhelming terror of death? She suddenly screamed out-

-which Kira heard, triggering reflexes he did not know he had. The last three shells were shredded just before the bridge by the spinning boomerang from the Strike Gundam.

Andrew Waltfield just about dropped his binoculars in shock. He'd seen good pilots before, but this was beyond good. He did not know anyone personally that could have done that action.

"I got them!" Kira exclaimed. He couldn't believe it, but he just could not have allowed Flay to be hurt. The image of her pained smile as she said 'thanks' was still in his mind.

* * *

Miriallia was panting heavily. The bridge had just barely survived a direct attack, sending a huge spike of adrenaline through her body. "Huh, huh. It's so warm," she said as it seemed like molten fire was starting to drift down her nerves. "My body... it feels like I'm on fire."

Flay attention was suddenly riveted by what she was said, turning her head suddenly. "What?"

Miriallia hunched over her console. "I'm on fire. My nerves... they are burning up!"

Flay was already moving, intercepting Romero from touching her. "Wait." Could she be 'waking up' like she had?

"What's wrong with me?" Miriallia asked as she tried stand up from her console, cracking some of the keys.

"Careful. You don't know your own strength," Flay said suddenly.

Marrue looked over her shoulder suddenly. "What?"

"I think... she awakening," Flay explained in a shocked voice. When Miririallia jerked in surprise, breaking the console off Flay grabbed her. "Careful. Try to move slowly."

Sai's eyes were wide in horror. There were turning into _Coordinators_ all around them. "My God, how is this possible? Is this some sort of genetic weapon that can turn people into Coordinators?" he gasped out in surprise.

Everyone looked shocked at the thought.

"No, that would be stupid," Murrue said quickly. "Being a Coordinator doesn't change your allegiance. This would be like handing the Earth Alliance trained super soldiers with a bow as a gift. There must be something else."

"Lt. Commander Ramius is correct," Natarle said in agreement finally. "Ensign Allster, please take Crewman Haw back to her room and help her with the changes."

"Come on Miri," Flay said gently. She wasn't a freak. Alone. Despised. As they walked down the hall towards the crew area, the red-head really smiled for the first time in seemingly years.

"Flay! Miri! Have you heard what we are going to be doing next?" Kira called out as he slipped on his uniform jacket. That smile she had, that was the one he remembered on Flay back on Heliopolis.

Flay blinked, then shook her head. "Sorry, the captain didn't say. I'm taking Miriallia back to her room to work on her reflexes."

"Say what? Why would- She suddenly turned into a Coordinator too?" the young man asked as he realized what was going on.

Miri nodded. "I broke my console on the bridge," she said in a very quiet tone.

"Under another stressful situation," Kira muttered. "I wonder." He shook his head. "Well, let's go do some things so she can practice to get control of her reflexes."

* * *

The blonde freedom fighter of Desert Dawn drove up to the recently moved _Archangel _after it had been attacked and stopped her jeep right in front of the main ramp. The big man next to her raised an eyebrow.

"It's in your hands, Cagalli." The big middle-eastern man did not look happy to be there.

She pushed the goggles back up and onto her forehead. "Yes, it is."

"Ahoy! You were that girl that warned us of that attack, weren't you?" said a beefy man in work coveralls as he waved.

She nodded. "You guys did some good work against ZAFT. A lot of people here might not like the Earth Alliance, but they don't like ZAFT a hell of a lot more."

"Sounds like you want to cut a deal," Murdoch said. Behind him the lift opened, admitting Murrue, Natarle and Mu. "Hey, Captain! I think this young lady wishes to talk to you."

"I'm Captain Murrue Ramius. This is Lt. Commander Mu La Flaga and my XO, Lt. Natarle Badguirel," Murrue said in way of introduction. They had seen the jeep driving up brazenly, so figured they wanted to talk.

Mashib nodded. "Friends don't greet friends with guns," he said solemnly; talking about the soldiers up on the catwalks.

Murrue grinned. "Too true. But we already had one bad close call with people trying to take over the ship. Stand down, men!"

Cagalli was staring at the Strike. She seemed to have a simmering anger over it.

Mu wandered over to the girl. Conversationally, he asked, "So, you like the Earth Alliance's first mobilesuit?"

"Not really, Hawk of Endymion," she snapped. She stomped after the leader of the local rebels.

Mashib and Murrue were talking pleasantly, heading to the Captain's quarters/office when they ran across three crew members that pushed up against the walls to make room for them.

"You're that girl!" Kira blurted out. Flay and Miriallia both gave him an odd look from each side of him.

"You! Your the jerk that locked me into that escape pod in Heliopolis!" Cagalli reacted without thinking, sending a slap at him.

A slap that he easily intercepted. "Hey?"

"So how did you end up on this ship after stuffing me in an escape pod!" she asked grumpily, pulling her hand from his grip.

"I, um, accidentally end up in the Strike," Kira mumbled.

"_YOU'RE_ the pilot of that mobilesuit?" she almost yelled, sending out a slap-

-which was stopped by the girl on his right. Flay held her hand more tightly. "No, he's _one_ of the Strike's pilots." She gave the shorter girl a hard glare.

"Eh? Who are you?" Cagilla was now glaring at the red-head who could not have been much younger than her.

"Ensign Flay Allster-" she started to say.

"You? The new _'Abomination'_ that Blue Cosmos has been going on about?" the freedom fighter asked in absolute shock.

"WHAT?" Flay shrieked, talking a startled step backwards to bump into the wall while letting go of Cagalli. How could she know about this?

"Where did you hear that?" Murrue snapped out as she spun Cagalli around by her shoulder.

"Eh? It made the local and international news about a Natural that was turned into a Coordinator. It's been a pretty hot topic back at camp since it went live this morning. They are calling you 'Subject number one'," Cagalli explained. "It sounded unbelievable. Wait. There's some _actual _truth to this?"

Mashib groaned. "Cagalli. I guess tact will never be your strong point."

"You three, come with us," Murrue ordered. "Natarle, head back and keep a lid on the crew."

She led them to her office which was very crowded. The two rebels put their back to the wall, while Mu was crammed up against the desk and essentially sitting on Murrue's bed while the three Coordinators jostled for room in front of the desk.

"If I could get a copy of that news, miss, I'd really appreciate it," Murrue said as she rubbed her temple. "Other than that, we are at a disadvantage here as we were thrown off course from Alaska."

"You missed Alaska by this much?" Cagalli exclaimed.

"Cagalli, please." Mashib nodded thoughtfully. "We wish to open a mutually beneficial agreement against ZAFT locally."

"And what are you offering?" Mu asked seriously.

"We have many local contacts, so we can connect you with the black market for things you need and we would provide guides. Though Waltfield probably wants your head on a platter after driving off his attack," the big middle-eastern man said.

"We'll take that under advisement. Who would be our guide?" Murrue asked.

"This young lioness, eh Cagalli?" Mashib said with a broad smile. "Our Angel of Victory."

Cagalli just glared, but nodded.

"It's a deal," Murrue said, holding out her hand to shake Mashib's.

As the big man was leaving with Cagalli following him, Flay reached out and touched the blonde's shoulder. "Could you please wait a moment."

"I think we need a bit more information about that news on Ensign Flay." Murrue looked very serious.

"Is it real? Was she _really_ a Natural that suddenly _became_ a Coordinator?" Cagalli asked suddenly.

"Yes, she is. And now so am I, so answer the damn question!" Miria snapped out. Her fists were clenched at her sides.

Cagalli's eyes widened at that. "_Another_ one? Blue Cosmos is claiming that this is a weapon that the PLANTs are using against Naturals-"

"Which is a stupid idea," Mu said. "Just tell us all what Blue Cosmos is saying. We don't have all day." The ace pilot looked intent and angry.

"Blue Cosmos is claiming that a girl suddenly turned into a Coordinator from their sources within the Atlantic Federation space forces. That this girl, whom they have proof was a Natural as of her last physical, is now one hundred percent Coordinator. They even claim to have her genetic assay to prove it." Cagalli narrowed her eyes. "They are saying it is a plot of the PLANTs against Earth."

"Basically didn't say a lot except that someone can turn into a Coordinator, eh?" Mu quipped.

Murrue nodded. "But it does tell us that Blue Cosmos has some friends high up in the Atlantic Federation," she finally said.

* * *

Flay set her packages down. "A little shopping to soothe my soul. I'd almost forgotten what a balm it could be. Even if it was for food supplies," she said with a grin. Her red hair was pinned up and she was currently wearing a bulky jacket and a hat. That should make her look different enough not to end up on the front of the local (and then very shortly afterwards the international) newspapers. She had a lot of fun bargaining for their supplies, but was a bit frustrated in the lack of her special skin cremes.

Kira looked on uncertainly _and_ uncomfortably. "Um, okay." He also set his own packages down so they could order at the little open air café. He was also in his civilian clothes.

Cagalli looked at Flay as if she'd grown two heads. "I've _never_ seen the use of shopping."

"That's because you're a tomboy at heart, Cagalli," the red-head replied as she started reading through the menu.

"Oh, the kabobs here are supposed to be good," the blonde said.

They quickly ordered and were getting ready to eat when they were accosted by an unusual man in a Hawaiian shirt and fishing hat that insisted that Cagalli try the kabobs with the cucumber sauce, not the red chili sauce. They start arguing humorously until the man in the Hawaiian shirt suddenly yells out that they are being attacked. He kicks the table up to block a rocket attack.

"For a Blue and Pure Earth!" screams one of the attackers as they moved out of the crowd.

Kira moved to tackle Cagalli and Flay, but the Neo-Coordinator had already ducked back. Flay grabbed several bottles of sauces out of the air and threw them with uncanny accuracy towards the nearest attacker. It should have been comical, but they smashed into his face in rapid sequence, knocking him unconscious instead of leaving her body riddled with bullets.

"Kill Waltfield!" another screamed out, trying to gun down the man that Cagalli had been arguing about food sauces.

Andrew Waltfield, for that is who it was, shot and gunned down soldiers. But for all he was a Coordinator, he was still only one man.

Kira yelled out as he saw a Blue Cosmos assassin about to shoot Andy down from behind. He threw a plate with stunning force at the assassin's head and was crouching down to leap at him to finish him off when three bullet holes appeared in his foes chest. "Flay?"

"What? Natarle said I could carry a pistol into the city," she said defensively. She had the Earth Alliance standard pistol in her hand, scanning the area like she'd seen in cop shows. But luckily for her, it was all over and she did not have to use her meager pistol skills that her father forced her to learn for self-defense.

"Ah, what a waste," Andy said.

That was when several ZAFT soldiers appeared, taking charge of the situation. Kira and Cagalli realized that they were talking to none other than Andrew Waltfield, the Desert Tiger of ZAFT.

"What a mess! We can't have that. You three will have to come back with me to get cleaned up and so I can fill out reports." He sighed theatrically. "The bane of all true soldiers."

"Uh, do we really have to?" Kira asked as he saw the worried expressions on Flay and Cagalli's faces.

"Unfortunately, we do. No way to get around it. But you will be my honored guests."

* * *

Flay was staring out the windows of the mansion moodily. This was beyond bad. Behind her, Andrew Waltfield was busy setting up his coffee machine.

"So, Miss Flay, why don't you take off your hat and stay a while? The light in here isn't that good, so you don't need your sunglasses either," Andrew said cheerfully as he fiddled with his coffee maker.

"What?" Kira exclaimed, clenching his fist even as Cagalli gasped.

Flay just lowered her head with her eyes closed. With a sigh, she removed her glasses and hat. "So much for my disguise," she said grouchily.

"Oh, do calm down," Andy said to Kira. "If I was going to throw you in a cell, I'd have already done it. I just wanted to meet this oddity that is a Natural that turned into a Coordinator. Bunch of rubbish. You can't modify a person's genes that easily."

Flay's left eye was twitching. "Great. Blue Cosmos wants me dead and ZAFT thinks I'm a joke."

"They only want you dead if you really were a Natura that turned into a Coordinator, girl," the ZAFT commander replied saucily.

"Then I guess they want me dead," she replied if a flat, dangerous tone.

That stopped him. "Excuse me? You really _were_ a Natural and then just became a Coordinator?" he asked in shock.

Kira nodded slowly. "It's true. She had a rough time learning to control her reflexes."

"Ah. That changes things a lot. I'll have to rethink my report then." Andy then turned to look at Kira speculatively. "So, Kira was it? How do you think this war will end?" Andy suddenly asked. Aisha, his assistant, gave him a raised eyebrow at that.

"What?" Kira and Flay exclaimed.

"Well, as a mobilesuit pilot you should be thinking of that." Andrew continued on, ignoring Aisha's gasp. "You've made quite a name for yourself. You even made ace during that battle when the Earth Alliance 8th Fleet was nearly wiped out."

Kira's eyes flickered over to Flay. "That wasn't me." She'd killed that many enemy mobilesuits?

Andy whistled softly. "So that was her defending the 'legged ship' in the desert?"

Flay's eyes glanced over to Kira. "That wasn't all me."

"Ah. Two pilots. Interesting. So, both of you, are you going to stop this war by killing everyone in your way?" Andrew asked as he held up his pistol at them. Aisha had her pistol readied, but not pointed. "Even you, beserker, won't be able to get out of here in a building full of Coordinators."

"Berserker?" Kira breathed out.

"But like you said, you could have put us in prison cells already. So you must have something else in mind," Flay countered. She bit her tongue to keep from yelling out that, yes, she would be willing to kill every Coordinator in ZAFT and PLANT if it came down to it.

"You have a sharp mind," Andy noted. He safetied his pistol. "Yes, for today, we are not enemies. I wanted to meet the man... or woman... that caused La Creuset so many problems. He's not known to be an incompetent."

Cagalli just shook her head. "That seems nuts. So you are just going to let us go?" She just felt so helpless, so covered it with anger.

"Of course. I just wanted an interesting conversation with my honored guests." Andy was smiling, but it was a trifle hard edged.

They were escorted back into the city where Natarle demanded to know what was going on. Kira summed it up the attack and then the 'invitation' of the Desert Tiger. With that, Natarle ordered them back to the ship even as she kept a suspicious eye on all three of them. Andrew Waltfield just would not invite enemies to tea.

Would he?

* * *

It was the next morning that news of the attack on Desert Dawn's home town arrived. Cagalli rubbed her eyes, even as the other rebels were rousting themselves from the sleep in the dark of the morning.

"What happened?" she asked.

Mashib frowned as he saw Cagalli's personal bodyguard following her in the background. "ZAFT razed the village. We aren't sure, but it may be in retaliation for us supplying _Archangel_."

The rebels quickly headed out, even as Mu launched in his SkyGrasper.

Flay turned to Miriallia with a stoney face. "I'm going to go get some simulator time. You want to try to see if you can do your job on the bridge?"

The brown-haired girl smiled. "I'll definitely try. Besides, I want to see if I can do that super-fast typing thing you and Kira do sometimes."

Flay just chuckled as she walked off. She quickly changed into the flight suit and started prepping Strike to go out. Maybe if she was in the mobilesuit when the Captain ordered them to fight ZAFT she would be allowed to fight. She tightened her grip. She would not give in to her fear.

She shook her head and started up a 'light' practice session.

* * *

"Message from Lt. Commander La Flaga. He says the rebels are launching a retributive attack against the ZAFT forces that leveled their town," Miriallia said from the communication console.

"Very well. Order Kira to the Strike to support the rebels," Murrue called out.

Miriallia blinked as she talked a second. "Flay says she's ready to go out right now," she said over her shoulder.

"Huh?" the captain asked.

"She's in the Strike and ready to go. She already has the Aile Strike pack prepped," the communication tech explained.

"Has she been waiting this entire time? Whatever. Launch the Strike!"

Flay's smiled nastily. The Strike was lifted into position even as the Strike was set in front of the Linear Accelerator. "Flay Allster, Aile Strike Gundam launching." As the Strike flew out of the Archangel, she activated the phase shift, then turned it off just ten seconds later. "Can't waste power."

She would need as much power to kill as many ZAFT soldiers as possible. She kept low to the ground but in the direction that Mu had informed them the ZAFT forces were moving away in.

Andy was shaking his head as the rebels attacked his force of BuCUEs. They were so outclassed it was not funny. Jeeps and trucks were over turned or burning.

That was when the first BuCUE exploded as a particle beam hit it just behind the front legs. Everyone on the field turned to see the Aile Strike Gundam skimming over the surface at full speed firing rapidly and taking down a second BuCUE.

Andy swore violently. "Shit. This was supposed to draw out that ship, but they responded much faster than expected."

The Strike's vulcans fired, spattering the area. Waltfield managed to duck just before his military jeep was blown off the road. He dove off just before it could land on him, hitting the ground hard.

The ZAFT pilots of the three remaining BuCUEs reacted quickly, sliding through the desert to attack the Strike, even as she sent the Aile Striker equipped Gundam sideways. Like wolves, two BuCUEs suddenly charged and leaped so that their head-mounted beam sabers could get her coming and going.

Flay suddenly charged the one in front of her at full throttle. She batted the BuCUEs head with the shield, knocking it sideways and breaking the delicate beam emitters.

She barely dodged sideways, getting one of her Aile flight fins scorched by the other BuCUE. She started firing with the beam rifle, blasting a rear leg from the BuCUE before it could get behind cover.

Andrew Waltfield was yelling into his radio, "Get out of here Dacosta. You can't stop that thing with your current weapons. Tell Aisha to assault the Archangel as planned."

"But sir!" Dacosta called out.

"That's an order!" Andy yelled. Damn. Here comes some of the Desert Dawn survivors.

The remaining BuCUEs retreated quickly, each of them vowing vengeance on the Strike. Flay was busy trying to shoot them, but they were able to get away.

"Damn it." She looked around the battlefield, feeling a burning sense of accomplishment at defeating the BuCUEs. That was was when she noted a ZAFT soldier firing a pistol at some of the rebels from behind the cover of his downed vehicle. Her close up showed Andrew Waltfield. She stomped over and pointed the Strike's particle beam rifle at him.

Andy swore softly under his breath. "Fine, I'm coming out." He tossed out his gun and held up his hands.

Cagalli had a feral grin on her face. This might have been a stupid attack, but actually capturing Andrew Waltfield was an incredible windfall.

Flay's right eye was twitching, remembering his conversation with her and Kira just yesterday. Her eyes were heavily dilated as she hit the outside speakers. "So, Andy, you decided to raze a village. So nice to ruin those family's lives. Decided to start killing them all slowly, I see." Her right eye was twitching heavily. "You'd rather people starve to death or fight each other for food and medicine."

"It's war. You people in the Earth Alliance people started it," Andy snapped, his anger and fear getting the better of him. "Don't you remember a little thing called Junius-7?"

"Sure, I guess that means some admiral nuking it illegally means its open season on Naturals. Do you know how many Naturals died from Neutron Jammers, Andy?" Flay snarled out over the speaker. She remembered reading a magazine article about it months ago. She had not realized that she remembered it though.

"Eh?"

"I heard just over a million within the first month. Most of those froze to death in Siberia or Canada. Or those who's home life-support machines failed because they had no electricity. That doesn't include riots for food that hadn't spoiled. But those were just _'April Fools.'_ I guess Coordinator's lives are worth five times as much as Naturals." Flay's breathing was raspy and quick as her emotions were in control.

Cagalli skidded in front of Andy, holding up her hands. "What are you doing? He's surrendered!"

"Maybe he doesn't deserve to live," Flay shrieked. "How many more people have to die in their homes with their families? Starving to death?"

"What are you? Some sort of monster that would shoot an unarmed man?" Cagalli yelled right back.

Fray reared back in her acceleration chair as if she'd been hit. Her mouth moved, but was not able to make any sounds. Finally, in a very small voice, she said, "I'm not a monster. I'm not." She removed her helmet to brush futilely at her tears.

The Strike's rifle dropped down to the Strike's side even as Cagalli let out her held breath.

"You left your back open, but I won't do anything," Andy said calmly, his face looking very grave. That had been a bit unpleasant what she had said. And, if he was going to be truly honest with himself, probably far too accurate. N-Jammers could have been used easily for defense, but there was no need to saturate Earth with them. They _should_ have been the perfect defense against nuclear attacks, but instead became a weapon of retribution.

* * *

Murrue's fist smashed into Flay's chin totally out of the blue after Flay's arm started to move to salute, knocking her to the ground. "Ensign Flay, if I _ever_ hear that you threaten to kill a surrendering soldier again, I will personally make you life a personal hell you will regret for the rest of your life. We are the Earth Alliance and we do not murder, we do not kidnap, extort and by God, if I have to teach that to you through corporal punishment, I will." The captain of the Archangel was now showing how livid she was. "Unless you shape up fast, I will personally have you courtmartialed for your monstrous actions. Do you hear hear me, Ensign?" she shouted loudly.

Andrew Waltfield winced even as he checked the sturdiness of his manacles as he was led through the landing bay of the _Archangel_. The first thing he'd noted was how empty the ship really was and how many mobilesuits it could really carry. He decided he really did not like the idea of this ship when it was fully armed and equipped. Especially if they were all Strikes.

"Yes, sir!" Flay blurted out as she held her jaw. The pain was finally catching up even as her heart hammered. _Monstrous._

"Good. You are confined to your quarters. Get out of here," Murrue snarled out. She then turned and stomped to the lift that would take her to the bridge.

Flay pulled herself up, ignoring the tears streaming down her face. Being treated like that by Marrue Ramius, probably one of the few people she most respected, hurt her severely.

She sat on her bed in her 'private' quarters, realizing that she really was alone. Miriallia, Sai, Kuzzey and Tolle never stopped by really. They were all a year older than her, true, but she'd thought they were her friends.

_Monsters don't have friends,_ her thoughts seemed to echo and echo to her.

She was almost ready to believe that when there was a knock on her door. She opened it to see someone surprising. "Kira!" as she grabbed onto him as if he was a lifeline. "Please, if you could just hold me. Anything to keep me from feeling like..." She couldn't say it. If she said the word 'monster' it would become true.

"Sure. I'll be here for you," Kira promised easily even through his surprise. After a few minutes, she finally stopped sobbing. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. With a sigh though, she started talking, "I- need to though. I'm losing it Kira. All I can hear is people knowing me as 'abomination' and... 'monster.' What sort of person threatens a girl to stop a battle? And that was _before_ I awoke." She choked a second. "All I wanted to do after that- I wanted to hurt people, kill them for what they did to my daddy. And today... I nearly used a mobilesuit beam rifle on Andy Waltfield because he pissed me off with his little words games. I'm- I'm such a-"

"Shush," Kira said, interrupting her. "You weren't a soldier then. Just a girl who knew she only had her mind to come up with a plan. You had to know couldn't have really hurt Lacus. You didn't have a gun and she was far stronger than you. She _let_ you do that and was happy that the battle stopped."

Flay looked amazed. "But-"

"And today? Since when did stopping to shout and yell at someone count as killing them? I think you are very angry and saddened by the loss of your father, but I think being called a monster isn't right, Flay." He smiled at her and carefully cupped his hand on her cheek. "All I can see is the pretty girl that I had a crush on back at Heliopolis."

"That long?" she asked with a pained smile. On impulse, she stretched up on her toes and suddenly kissed him lightly on the lips. She lowered herself back down and leaned up against him. "This make me feel more human. Everyone's been treating me like I'm a grenade that's about to go off."

Even while blushing, Kira had the sense of mind to give her a small squeeze of a hug. She really had been on the edge of an explosion, he realized. He was about to speak again when he was silenced by a kiss. This one much hotter and lively.

Flay grabbed his right and suddenly put his palm to her chest. "Kira, please let me feel- Let me feel human for a while. Please?" she pleaded.

He couldn't stop himself from agreeing. That sad smile had disarmed him completely.

* * *

"So, Andrew Waltfield." Murrue frowned. "This was really not what I was expecting."

"_I_ wasn't expecting to get properly ambushed by a G-Weapon flown by a pilot willing to play hardball." Andrew laughed from behind his bars in the brig. "She's got a killer instinct. Kira's a better pilot, but he really doesn't put his whole mind into it. She set up that ambush just right."

"Well, I hope she can keep her 'killer' instinct under control," Murrue said grumpily. Behind her, Mu just rolled his eyes.

As the two of them stepped out of the brig, Natarle met up with them. "Well, it looks like Mashib has finalized his half of the plans for trying to take on the ZAFT forces in the area."

"Good. Then we can look at taking out the local ZAFT forces and then depart with the supplies we need," Murrue replied while nodded.

* * *

Aisha sat in the cockpit of what was supposed to be _Andy's_ LaGOWE. She had a ZAFT reservist pilot as her copilot. She would have much rather been in the back with Andy as the pilot, but she needed to pound that battleship to scrap first. "DaCosta? Are we ready?"

"Yes, ma'am. We'll show those rebels that they were foolish to meet us out in the open," officer said from the bridge of the _Lesseps. _

On the bridge of the _Archangel_ Miriallia was busy listening in to distorted radio signals. "There's definitely at least one carrier headed this way, but I think we'll have to worry about at least one more. I'm getting back-scattered emissions from south beyond the ridge," she said, interrupting Murrue's train of thought.

Natarle was down in CiC but had overheard the announcement. "Captain, we should probably send a SkyGrasper to verify that."

"We're going to need Lt. Commander La Flaga here," Murrue countered.

"He should be able to make it back for the battle," Natarle countered right back. "If there's another land battleship, we could be out maneuvered and pounded to scrap.

"Very well, launch SkyGrasper 1 with orders to verify enemy land battleship to the south," the captain ordered.

Mu raised an eyebrow at that, but he really could not fault the need to verify the enemy force if it existed. "Mu La Flaga, SkyGrasper; Launching!" he'd been sitting ready on the catapult for a while, so it was easy to launch. His SkyGrasper streaked off to the south.

"Here they come! Launch Strike! There's the _Lessep_," Murrue called out.

Kira had his eyes narrowed as the Strike shot out into the air, flying around nimbly with its Aile Striker engaged. "Here come the BuCUEs," he warned. It looked like some other mobile suits, but they did not seem to be moving well.

Cagalli was outside in one of the Desert Dawn's attack trucks. "Why is the SkyGrasper going that way? That's going to leave us exposed here."

Misaka narrowed his eyes. "Well, they aren't our forces, so it is not like we can't tell them what to do."

"Pull up closer to the _Archangel's_ forward left hull. We need air cover here or we are all going to be butchered," Cagalli ordered. Through the use of the a grapple, some (too much) luck, she was soon inside the battleship and running across the almost deserted docking bay.

"Hey!" Murdoch shouted out.

"We need every fighter out there! If you won't fly it, I will!" Cagalli shouted. She ran up the steps to the cockpit

"Well, I guess you can be my gunner then. I'm just about to launch," Flay said humorlessly from the pilot's seat.

Not to let herself look like a fool, she agreed immediately. "Of course. Can you actually fly this thing?"

Flay just answered by flipping the com-channel open. "Flay Allster in SkyGrasper, ready to launch."

Murrue frowned, but nodded. Miriallia called out, "SkyGrasper 2, you are go. Repeat, you are go. Good hunting."

The linear accelerator flung the advanced fighter with the Sword Striker attached. "I wish the Launcher Striker was available, but they are still adjusting it for use on the fighter." Who the hell made sure the melee weapon striker was working _over_ the long range weapon systems?

"We've still got the regular turret particle cannons," Cagalli noted. Why was she flying so cautiously?

"All right, let's do this," Flay called out as she pushed to the edge of her meager skills. Ten hours in a simulator was seriously not enough to give you a real feel for flying a fighter.

Luckily, her gunner seemed to really know what she was doing and was firing to take down assault choppers and ZuOOTs. "Come on, you aren't even pushing this machine. It can handle at least twice this much thrust and turn," she complained.

The red-head agreed, so she just started pushing faster and faster as they led the assault on the non-mobilesuit forces. Another ZuOOT exploded as the clumsy unit tried to bracket the SkyGrasper.

"Get the lead out, Flay. You fly that slow on your first mission and you are going to end up dead!" Mu snapped out as his SkyGrasper screamed by at full speed.

Flay almost snapped out for him to give her a break, but she knew he was absolutely correct. "All right, lets hit the _Lesseps_." When the ground ship fired at her, she managed to avoid getting hit, but just barely. She pushed the throttle full forward.

Cagalli had been wrong. The SkyGrasper was able to go twice as fast as she thought, though she was busy potting anything coming near the SkyGrasper to really see the maneuverability at its best. There were not many assault choppers left at all.

That was when _Archangel _announced it was caught on some wreckage _while_ Kira announced he was starting to run low on power. "Damn it. Hang on, Cagalli," Flay ordered even as she spun the SkyGrasper around. She wove the fighter in and around the bombardment coming in to hammer the Archangel.

Up on top of the Lessep, Dearka was watching the fight. "That ship really does seem to be indestructible, doesn't it?" He wanted to shoot at the _Archangel_ but he was hoping for it to get a bit closer.

"I'm just looking for that pilot that killed Nichol," Yzak snarled back from his Duel that was standing beside him. He was just about useless in this battle. The Strike was moving around way too fast. He was pretty sure it was Athrun's friend in there, not the ruthless pilot that decimated their GINNs against the Earth Alliance 8th Fleet. So that pilot was probably in that SkyGrasper. Probably that really well handled one, though maybe that was that Mobeius Zero pilot instead.

Flay's SkyGrasper turned sideways suddenly and deployed the anti-ship beam-sword, chopping the Archangel free from the remains of the refinery. "Great. Now you can stop pussy-footing around use those cannons finally," Flay snarled out even as she looped around.

Murrue winced, but the pilot did have a point. The _Archangel _seriously out-gunned every land-battleship out here. She had just been reluctant to use its full strength. "Natarle, destroy that land cruiser to the south," she ordered. "Prepare to fire the anti-positron cannon."

The _Archangel's_ port double beam cannons, a Gotfried, tracked the smaller battleship to the south and fired. The ZAFT battleship lurched to a halt under the immense damage.

Yzak yelled out, "Damn it! I'm going out!" The Duel leaped from the _Lesseps_ to head towards where Kira was still fighting the BuCUEs and the LaGOWE.

Dearka sighed, but followed behind his friend. "I've lost my fire arcs," he complained. Not that his sniper cannon was that useful at that range in the atmosphere.

Both ZAFT pilots found themselves in trouble on the sand, as they had not adjusted for the slippage caused by the unusual terrain for them.

"Order Kira to clear our line of fire," Murrue ordered. "The SkyGraspers will do one more attack run and then clear out."

The pair of SkyGraspers weaved an incredible pattern through the air as they hammered the _Lesseps_ and removed several of its cannons.

"Clear the fire arc!" Miriallia ordered to all units.

Aisha wondered why the Strike was headed away quickly, but she was more than willing to chase it. That was when she heard DaCosta call out, "_Archangel_ is firing its positron cannon again!"

Why had she not realized that earlier? She must have been too caught up in the fight against the Strike. Something that would not have happened if Andy had been there, she realized.

The torrent of anti-matter swept between the two ships with a brilliant light show, but when it was all over, the _Lesseps_ had gone critical and exploded. "DaCosta?" she asked the air of the dead officer. One moment they had been holding their own, then the next... it was just gone.

The nearby destruction of one of the last two BuCUEs drew her back to the battle. "We must destroy that Strike!" Aisha ordered. 'Sorry, Andy. I thought we could batter that ship down and rescue you, but it appears we might not even live through this.' "Everyone but the BuCUEs and myself will retreat. Now." Not that there were many soldiers left to retreat. But that G-Weapon could not last much longer. It had to be almost out of power, just like Andy had planned originally.

"I'm done to three percent power!" Kira exclaimed, dodging the LaGOWE and BuCUE again.

"Mu, I'm going to try to deliver the Sword Striker to Kira," Flay exclaimed. "Cagalli, try to force that BuCUE back."

"What a crazy stunt. Let's do it!" Mu said with a grin hidden behind his helmet. Sounded like something he would have tried, but he had really drained the Aile Striker almost empty. He fired at the LaGOWE, forcing it to dodge.

Murrue was listening and blinked in surprise when Flay mentioned Cagalli, but the SkyGraspers managed to push back the BuCUE and LaGOWE for just a second.

Kira had heard what Flay had planned and was ready to move to accept the Striker. He ejected the Aile Striker just at the right time. The SkyGrasper suddenly pulled up into a climb right behind him while shedding the Sword Grasper to slam into the back of the Strike.

"They can reconfigure _on_ the battlefield?" Aisha exclaimed.

"Only thirty-four percent power?" Kira noted. Of course, the SkyGraspers had been in the battle already. He shook that off and launched the shield at the surprised BuCUE, staving in its side while swinging it on the tether towards the LaGOWE.

When Aisha dodged that, her gunner tried to blow the Strike out of existence with his twin particle beam cannons. But something seemed to have burst within Kira, unleashing an amazing potential as the Strike casually blocked one shot on his shield while charging full out.

"Evade!" the gunner shouted out, even as Aisha tried her best to do so.

The anti-ship beam sword pierced the LaGOWE like a great lance, then ripped its way out upwards. The ground mobilesuit exploded just a moment later.

The battle was over.

In the brig of the _Archangel_, Andy wept when he learned of the total decimation of his forces and the death of his lover Aisha.

* * *

The _Archangel _drifted over the Red Sea, heading out to the Indian Ocean. Flay had been surprised when Cagalli had joined them with her older friend; the enigmatic Kisaka. They had not exactly asked to join, but just sort of forgot to mention that they were not getting off earlier.

In the Captain's office; Murrue, Mu and Natarle were all going over the current plans. "So we seemed to be doing somewhat better now. Mu, how are your pilots?"

The cocky pilot just grinned. "Kira and Flay have come a long way. They are actually shoring up each other's weaknesses. Kira tries to not think things _before_ the battles, while Flay is not quite the piloting prodigy that he is. They've been simulator training for a while and even 'war gaming' some ideas on how to fight over the ocean. Cagalli is actually a very decent pilot on her own, but put her and Flay in a SkyGrasper and they are truly a force to be reckoned with."

Natarle frowned, but could not argue with soldiers training to be more effective. And it showed that Flay was probably not some sort of undercover agent. Even if that went against her preconceived notions. "The Archangel is about as close to fully functional, even with our limited crew. We should have enough supplies for several engagements."

"From what our Desert Dawn allies were able to glean, there may not be that many ZAFT submarines out in the water right now. They've heard that ZAFT is preparing a major offensive. So most of their submarines may have been recalled to Carpentia." Murrue scrubbed her hair with her left hand a second. "That's the good news. The bad news is-"

"That we don't have any real way of fighting under water. None of the Strikes weapons are designed for underwater usage." Mu frowned. "Cagalli has offered to either pilot a SkyGrasper or be a gunner, while Flay is rapidly improving her own piloting of the fighter." The ace frowned a second. "I think that Flay is becoming much steadier. I was afraid for a while that she was going to self-destruct out there on the battlefield."

"Do we have any idea what caused that?" Murrue asked as she tapped on her desk.

"I think it was Kira. I think she was teetering on the brink of a major breakdown when she captured Andrew Waltfield. And then your dress-down... Kira won't talk of it directly, but I guess Flay was feeling like she _was_ a monster." Mu looked serious.

"Can we depend on her?" Natarle asked seriously.

"I think we can. She hates ZAFT, probably her biggest drive. But I no longer think it is quite so... overwhelming an imperative," the ace fighter pilot replied. He grinned suddenly. "I _do_ wish we had another Strike or two though."

"Oh, why?" Murrue asked.

"It would be nice to send out three of us in mobilesuits instead of just fighters to supplement the Strike." Mu waited for that to sink in. "Yes, Kira and Flay succeeded. I could fly the Strike now. It was mostly Flay complaining on about all the extraordinarily complicated command trees that only a Coordinator could pull off."

"Flay and Kira perfected the OS so that a Natural could pilot it?" Murrue asked in wonder.

"Yeah, that girl was complaining the whole time too. I guess making something easier to use is like twice as hard as just making it do something. I took a turn on the simulator based on it just an hour ago. I'm not as good as Kira or Flay, but I would succeed."

"Captain, I think that the Lt. Commander should get practice in the Strike." Natarle could almost feel the tension release from within her.

"Certainly. Mu, I _will_ leave the decision up to you on who should best pilot the Strike though." Murrue could practically see all of the tension return to Natarle. She met her XO's gaze directly in a silent confrontation.

Mu watched the two women for a long moment before Natarle broke off. Internally, he sighed. It was obvious that Natarle would rather have him in the Strike immediately as he was a 'true' Earth Alliance officer.

"Dismissed," Murrue said coolly.

* * *

Flay sat on he deck of the Archangel after the Captain had given the crew permission to do so.

"Flay!" Kira called out as he walked over. He patted her arm awkwardly. "How are you doing?"

"Better, thanks." She gave him a sunny smile as she played with her shortened hair. She had finally decided that long hair had no place in a mobilesuit cockpit.

"There you are!" Cagalli called out. She was still in her desert fighting clothes, which were a bit out of place here. "I've been playing with that simulator, but I still can't quite get the hang of how much you have to do to pilot it."

Flay scratched her head. "I really thought we had gotten it better."

"Well, I can't get it to do half of what you two have shown it to do," Cagalli complained.

The young man grinned. "Cagalli, we're still Coordinators. If it was just a matter of changing the program to compensate for our faster reflexes, I think that the Earth Alliance would have done that on their fighters a long time ago."

"I feel stupid now, I should have realized that. So a Natural pilot will only get one half of the performance out of the Strike, eh?" Cagalli asked as she slumped to the ground.

"Actually we thought they could only get about thirty percent functionality out of the Strike. Even Mu, with his heightened spatial awareness, can only get about fifty-five percent of the functionality out of the mobilesuit," Flay explained while she played with her hair in the sea breeze.

"So fifty percent is good? Well, I don't feel so bad then!" the blonde exclaimed. She squinted across the water. "So what have been working on? I saw Kira typing away madly on his keyboard in the Strike."

"We're just trying to figure out a way to defend the Archangel in case we run into ZAFT forces in the ocean. Just not having much luck with it. All of the energy weapons for the Strike are reduced to five percent range under water." Kira nodded at Cagalli's wince at that. "Right. In fact, the best weapon that the Strike has for underwater is actually the chain gun and the 350mm 'launcher' for the Launcher Striker."

"And even that's a poor substitute for a real, underwater weapon." Flay's blue eyes were not focused on anything but the internal puzzle. "We might be able to use the _Archangel's_ surface to air missiles and the Valiants, but even those are pretty stop-gap. I actually wrote some programs for Romero to use. So, hopefully we won't be totally helpless."

* * *

"It's two aerial models from ZAFT!" Sai called out. "DINNs!"

"Level One Battlestations! Ready to launch Strike and SkyGraspers!" Murrue ordered out from her command chair.

Marco Morassim, the commander of the Vosgulov class submarine _Cousteau,_ smiled as he sees the 'Legged Unit.' "Let's do this by the numbers and show La Creuset how real soldiers of ZAFT fight!" he shouted out to his wingman to rally them. His DINN dives towards the _Archangel _and unleashes a salvo.

His wingman was right behind him, ready to sink that ship in a heartbeat.

Mu launched in his SkyGrasper, while Flay was right behind him. Each were loaded with the two Aile Strikers. "Hey? Why didn't they give me the Launcher Striker?" Mu asked Flay.

"The Strike needs it, Mu. It's our only underwater set of weapons." Flay twirled around a DINN's attack, surprising him with how maneuverable the Aile SkyGrasper was.

"Shit! That's some fighter!" the DINN said, even as his six wings flexed to dodge a particle beam from Mu's SkyGrasper.

Morassim ordered two GOOhNs to launch to take out the _Archangel_ from below. While they were deploying, his wingman was waxed when he forgot to remember the battleship carrier had its own teeth while dodging the two SkyGraspers and the Strike that was standing on top of the ship. The DINN shredded in the air under the CIWS of the _Archangel_.

The ZAFT commander frowned. He could see now why the La Creuset team had been having so many troubles. He finally winged one of the fighters, forcing it to retreat.

"He got Mu!" Flay called out, even as she evaded another set of attacks from the DINN. It was devilishly fast and agile.

Kira finally lined up his attack and fired with his main beam cannon of the Launcher Strike configuration, nearly sinking Morassim in the process.

"Incoming underwater mobilesuits!" Natarle shouted out from the CiC. She had been watching her over-sized console closely for just such an arrival.

"Emergency lift off!" Murrue ordered.

The Archangel pulled up, disrupting Kira's next attack from the Strike at the remaining DINN.

Romero tapped his console. "Firing Valient 1 as we swerve to port!"

The Earth Alliance battleship-carrier rotated thirty-five degrees to its left even as the port Valiant fired into the water, but the GOOhNs had already dodged the attack. The two mobilesuit pilots were a bit worried. This ship was actually being effective in attacking them.

"Firing depth charge canisters!" the weapons officer then called out. Kira and Flay's idea to turn some of the smoke canisters into depth charges was a brilliant idea and well within the ships ability to cobble up. They had only thought it up just yesterday.

The GOOhNs split up as the heard on their sonar depth charges splashing into the water.

"Shit!" the leader managed to scream out just before a depth charge exploded next to him, cracking his suit which collapsed implosively.

"Strike, heading out!" Kira yelled, even as he sent the Strike leaping off the deck of the _Archangel._ The mobilesuit landed within one hundred yards of the remaining surprised GOOhN. His Launcher Strike chain-gun started to fill the water with 120mm rounds, which were still deadly at that range.

"You won't get me like that with a _space_ mobilesuit, Natural!" the GOOhN pilot shouted, even as it rocketed away. It then streaked back to attempt to slam into the Strike, just as Kira had expected.

While the Strike could not carry its own sonar, it could _listen_ to the GOOhN's emission with perfect accuracy. Kira had loaded a program to the audio sensors to do just that. He spun the Launcher Strike around and fired the two 350mm APHEAT shots from the weapon pod directly into the surprised underwater mobilesuit. Kira had to nod to himself, that extra preparation with Flay to be ready to fight in the water had _really_ paid off as the GOOhN imploded.

Morassim was severely pissed off now. They'd even recovered the one SkyGrasper that he had shot. Firing quickly enough to drive back the remaining fighter, he sped off to retreat to his _Cousteau._

He watched for pursuit, but thought he need not have bothered, as it appeared the fighter was not willing to tangle with his DINN anymore. Back behind him, Flay sent her SkyGrasper in a long sweep at full speed to position herself behind the DINN to follow at barely visual range, hoping that her systems were just slightly better than the DINN's own sensors.

The commander of the _Cousteau_ had just landed on the submarine carrier when missiles streaked in from low over the water. "What? I was sure I was not followed!" he yelled out. Explosions rattled the armor of the carrier-sub.

Flay just narrowed her eyes as she unleashed the Aile's particle beam shots right at the water's edge. With an abrupt change, she let the left-shield take several cannon shots that rattled her SkyGrasper. Even as she streaked past the submarine, she launched a red-flare into the air.

"Raise the ship to its full flight ceiling!" Murrue ordered when the flare was spotted. The Archangel was not really designed for true atmospheric flight, but its lifters could push it over three hundred meters into the air when needed.

Natarle smiled like a shark in CiC. "Target acquired. Relaying information."

"Ready positron cannons!" After verifying their readiness, she ordered, "FIRE!"

Morassim had just a moment to scream an order to dive, but it was far too late. The positron beams slammed into his _Cousteau_ like a vengeful bolt of lightning, breaking its back. Just a moment later, the submarine's fusion reactor went critical and it exploded.

"We got it!" Flay cried out in glee. Kira's plan to follow any mobile forces back to their submarine if at all possible had really worked.

She couldn't look forward to 'repaying' him on her birthday.

* * *

Athrun walked down the shuttle's landing ramp. "Yzak. Dearka. I heard you ran into that 'Legged Ship' again." Was Kira still with that ship?

Yzak nodded curtly. "Yeah. They wiped out Commander Waltfield's forces. High command is having to reinforce that area pretty heavily."

Dearka nodded his head at the dark-haired youth next to Athrun. "Hello?"

"Mackie Denzen, newly assigned to the newly formed Zala Team," the young man answered. "I'm also the pilot of the Blitz."

Yzak and Dearka shared Athrun's look of distaste at the 'replacement' for Nichol.

Yzak then fingered his scar for just a moment. "Well, we do have more information on that mysterious female pilot of the Strike."

Athrun looked curious. It would be much easier for him to destroy the Strike if his friend was not piloting it. "Oh?"

Dearka nodded. "It's the Abomination."

The name did not click for a long second for Athrun or Mackie, then the new pilot exclaimed, "The 'Neo-Coordinator' that was supposedly a Natural?"

"Flay Allster, the number one hit-target for Blue Cosmos. And now an Earth Alliance mobilesuit pilot." Athrun just shook his head. "Well, that doesn't change our orders. We're going to destroy the Strike and sink that ship. No matter what."

"Now we just need to transfer to Carpentia and track down that ship," Dearka said.

"And not get blown away in the process. I heard they took out the _Cousteau_ like they were pros." Not that Yzak cared about Morassim and his crew, but the fact that the Archangel had run another force under like they were nothings was worrisome.

Athrun nodded. "It sounds like the Earth Alliance may start to be actually effective in ocean battles."

"Not exactly what we wanted to hear," Dearka noted.

* * *

"We're losing control," Arnold Neuman shouted. "We're going to cross into Orb territorial waters!" This battle against all of the other G-Weapons was really not going well. They'd had weeks of relative quiet and then this massive battle had happened. The Archangel was a smoking wreck that the G-Weapons were intent on sending to the bottom of the Pacific. Mu and Flay just were not being effective against the G-Weapons, they were just outclassed.

That was when Cagalli made her move, forcing the Orb Union's Navy to take the wounded _Archangel_ into the country under the cover of cannon fire that missed the embattled ship while driving off the four members of Athrun Zala's team.

Archangel was 'escorted' by Orb's national fleet towards a hidden Morgeonrote facility even as Mu and Flay landed their SkyGraspers back on the ship while the battered Strike was landed by Kira.

"Well," Flay said as she took of her helmet and shook out her short hair. "I wasn't expecting Cagalli to be an Athha of Orb."

As Kira stepped out of his drop line from the Strike, he nodded. "That was unexpected. But maybe we have a safe port for a while."

Mu tossed his helmet in the gunner's seat of his SkyGrasper. "Oh, that's right. You are both from Orb, aren't you."

Kira nodded. "My parents should be still here." Not that he wanted to talk to them, they would be very disappointed in him becoming a soldier.

The Hawk of Endymion looked over at Flay. "Is your mother here?"

Flay shook her head. "She died when I was a child." She paused a second, looking away. "She never fully recovered from my birth."

The young man was torn between two conflicting issues. His desire to hug that desolated expression off of Flay (and he would not mind a bit comfort for his own fears with his parents) and the Earth Alliance strictures against consorting with fellow crew members were locked against each other. Kira and Flay had decided to avoid any _public_ shows of affection, at least. He settled for the very platonic patting of Flay on her shoulders.

Mu just shook his head. And the kids thought they were being subtle about their relationship. Normally, he'd dissuade them, but Flay's stability was over-riding that fairly strict rule. He really should talk to Murrue about that though. She might want to try to break them apart, and that could break the mentally brittle Flay.

* * *

Flay and Kira shared a bemused look. "We agreed to let them have the combat data of the Strike?" he asked in surprise.

"They have their own Mobilesuits." Flay's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Not only did they help make the Gundams, they have their own. And they are having trouble with their designs."

Murrue nodded as she internally agreed. "Yes. As the Earth Alliance had _some_ sort of agreement, I've agreed for them to look at our combat data."

Kira looked confused for a moment, then nodded. "Oh, that's right. You were pretending to be a worker for Morgenroete, weren't you?"

Murrue just nodded. "While the Orb Union does not wish to be involved in the Earth Alliance/ZAFT war, they also know that without mobilesuit technology, they are woefully unprepared to defend themselves against anyone that does have it. It's very much supposed to be a 'plausible deniability' sort of thing, but ZAFT probably now thinks that the Atlantic Federation and Orb are in bed. Which really is not the case." The captain of the _Archangel _gave them both a serious look over her desk. "As it is, they have requested the pilot of Strike and the programmer, too. You too can figure out who is which." She smiled at them suddenly. "Dismissed."

So that was how the Strike was walking down the road to a concealed entrance in a cliff face with no strikers loaded. The gray mobilesuit let itself get locked down as Erica Simmons headed over. The lead engineer on the ASTRAY series mobilesuits, she took in the view of the Strike with calculating eyes.

When it opened to show two people inside, she smiled softly. She had not believed the rumors that said the pilot _and_ programmer for the Strike had been one person. "Welcome to Onogiri Island and Morgenroete. I'm Erica Simmons, a head engineer for Morgenroete."

"And the lady that is having problems with her own mobilesuit development." Flay's helmet was hiding most of her grin.

"Well, yes. And you would be the pilot?" the engineer asked of Kira.

The two Earth Alliance pilots pointed at the other one.

Erica raised an eyebrow at that. "And who's the programmer?" she asked curiously. Not surprisingly, they pointed at each other again. "Ah, how cute."

Kira removed his helmet. "Ensign Kira Yamato of 8th Orbital Fleet, assigned to the _Archangel_."

Flay did the same, revealing her shortened red tresses. "Ensign Flay Allster, also assigned to the _Archangel._"

"Ah, you're that girl!" Erica said fondly. She walked up and patted Flay on the head, who looked quite flustered at the odd treatment. "You really should not have hidden being a Coordinator. It causes so many troubles, even here in Orb."

"Kira? What the hell is she talking about?" Flay asked hotly. "And _I_ didn't hide anything, Mrs. Simmons."

"Eh?" Erica shared a confused look at Kira. "Those rumors about her 'waking up' as a Coordinator have to be ludicrous. It's impossible."

"You don't seem to really care that we're Coordinators though." Kira had a pensive expression.

"Of course not. My son is a Coordinator." She gave Flay a sincere smile. "But that doesn't mean you can use your abilities unethically to get one up on our Natural citizens in school or work."

"Oh, that." Kira sent a worried look at Flay. "She doesn't know about Coordinators being graded separately and not being allowed on sports teams."

"Of course not. I was _not_ a Coordinator until just five weeks ago." Flay had an angry look on her face.

"But... that _is_ impossible. You either are one or not. You can't _turn into_ one." Erica looked dumbfounded.

"Tell that to my old dress that I ruined because I couldn't control my strength." The younger Coordinator folded her arms across her chest.

"Remarkable. You may want to have your genetic assayed to figure this out," Erica said helpfully. "I know a very discrete doctor. He's the one that helped with my son's procedure."

Flay ignored her, though the idea sounded appealing to her. Kira winced when he realized just how far Erica had gotten under Flay's skin.

"Well, on to business. We should get started on that Natural MOS." Erica had turned all serious.

Kira nodded. "Here you go." He handed her a data packet from his pocket. "It might need some tweaking, but it is all ready."

The engineer just looked shocked. "What? You _already_ have one? Why? You are both Coordinators, so you don't need it."

"Well, yes. But Flay and I had started simplifying the Strike's MOS to get rid of the 'cludgey' stuff, as she put it. And when we were done, it was almost a Natural MOS then." Kira shrugged.

"So, just in case Kira or I got hurt or captured, we finished it up in case Mu needed to use it. He and Cagalli have been practicing for the last ten days or so. They seem to be getting the hang of it fairly well." Flay sniffed angrily.

Erica suddenly dashed to her workstation and loaded up the program. "This _should_ work." She copied the MOS and then, with a visible amount of effort, started _walking_ towards heavily armored doors. "So let's go see how it works, hmm?"

Flay got a gleam in her eyes at that. The Orb Mobilesuits! Once she'd deduced that it existed, she'd wanted to see it. From Kira's expression, so did he.

Through the massive, mobilesuit-sized armored doors, Erica led them to rows of red, black and white mobilesuits that looked much like the Strike in general construction.

"These are the M-1 ASTRAYs, Orb Union's bid to stay able to defend ourselves in the current world," Erica proclaimed grandly. "Asagi, come down here. I have a new MOS for you to install."

The test pilot was surprised. She'd expected Erica to ask her to stumble around a bit. "Um, sure." She opened the hatch on her ASTRAY and lowered herself down. "Last minute work before we have those programmers from the _Archangel_ help us out?"

"No, this is their version of a Natural MOS. They already had one ready." Erica pushed her unneeded glasses back up her nose a bit.

"What? But-" Asagi ran back to her lift-line and zipped back up to her ASTRAY. A minute later, the red and black highlighted mobilesuit was tromping around with decent speed and ability. "Wahooo! This is great!"

Flay and Kira were looking at it for a bit. "That doesn't look quite right, does it?" Kira finally said.

"No, it doesn't. Erica, could you tell her to stop and come down?" Flay asked intently.

Asagi came back down. Faster than the blonde could follow, Flay dashed past her and up into the air.

"Hey!" Asagi looked quite upset. "You're not allowed up there!"

"Send it back down, Flay!" Kira called out. The line came back down, but Kira did not wait for it to come all the way back before his foot was in the stirrup, sending it right back up.

After about five minutes, Kira stuck his head out the hatch. "Can we take this outside to test it?"

Erica looked up from where she was talking to Asagi, who still looked a bit perturbed at the intrusion in her cockpit. "What? No!" the pilot yelled back.

"Asagi, please. What do you want to do?" The engineer was giving him an intent look.

"We want to push the boundaries of what the ASTRAY can do. And that's going to require us to be a bit more... vigorous than we can be in here," Kira replied.

* * *

Flay took a look to her left where Kira was walking beside her down the road in the main city of the Orb Union. "Only one more place." She was thinking back to a rather heated argument that she and Kira had just a week ago.

_"No, I don't want to go see my parents. That's final," Kira said hotly._

_"But everyone else is going to see their family." Flay could not believe he did not want to see them. She would give just about _anything _to see her father just one more time._

_"I'm not everyone else." Kira had then stood up and left her quarters, slamming the door behind him._

"And here's the last place!" Flay pointed at a fancy store that carried some of her most favorite make up and facial cremes.

Kira followed her into the very feminine store. This was basically the last place he ever wanted to step into. At least that's what he groused to himself. He was lost in thought, watching Flay putter through the aisle of make up.

"Hello, son," a deep, male voice said from right behind him.

"Dad? Mom?" Kira looked pole-axed as his parents enfolded him in a hug. For one long moment, he just stood there with his hands at his sides. Then he was holding them tight desperately. "I- I didn't think you would want to see me. Because I became a solider." _Because I'm a killer._

"You are our son. We would _always_ want to see you, Kira. No matter what," his mother said, holding him tight.

Kira's keen ears heard a fourth person sniffling just off in the distance. _'Flay.'_ He loosened his tight hug for a moment and looked over his shoulder to glance at the red-headed Neo-Coordinator. Tears were trailing down her cheeks, even as a pained smile was on her face. It was obvious she was trying to be happy for Kira, but was feeling very saddened by the family meeting. Something she would never be able to do with her own father.

"Mom, Dad?" Kira said softly. "Flay?"

"Yes?" Flay looked a little puzzled as she stepped a bit closer. It had been worth all the effort to trick Kira into this meeting with his parents, but that did not mean she was not still devastated by the loss of her father.

So she was completely surprised when Kira pulled her into the family hug. "This is Flay Allster." He looked into her surprised, blue eyes. "She's my girlfriend."

When the older woman hugged her also, with a too kind smile, she burst out in tears again. She clung desperately to Kira.

* * *

The two off-duty pilots were walking back to the transport after that when Birdy took off from Kira's shoulder. "Birdy!" Kira called out, walking quickly around the corner and down to a grassy spot between two building.

Flay was surprised to see Birdy land in the hands of a dark-haired youth with green eyes. The other three members of his group seemed just a surprised.

"Athrun, what it that?" the silver-haired young man in the technician's coveralls asked with a hint of anger. He had an ugly scar across his nose.

That was when Kira gasped. "Athrun." He almost dropped Flay's packages.

The Neo-Coordinator looked at this 'Athrun' more closely through her sun-glasses. She was again wearing a hat to try and disguise her appearance again. Why Kira's robotic pet be in this new person's hand?

Suddenly, Athrun saw Kira and looked just as surprised.

Kira walked up tensely, but while attempting to appear casual. "Birdy was a... valued gift from a very dear friend. I'm glad he's safe." Kira was trying to be cryptic here.

Flay's eyes widened as she realized that this was the _ZAFT _pilot of Aegis, Kira's childhood friend from Copernicus. And if that was his old friend, this was likely the other three pilots of the stolen units. A jolt of adrenaline hit her system as she smiled as convincingly as possible. "Hello!"

Birdy hopped back into Kira's free hand. Athrun gave Kira an unscrutible look. "You'd better keep that out of trouble then."

Kira just nodded, holding the robotic bird in his cupped hands.

"Let's go." Athrun turned and walked away, leading the other three away. Once they were down the street _and_ he saw Kira and the girl with him enter a cab, he let his team know what was going on. "We just had confirmation that the Legged Ship is here. We need to get back to the _Horatio Nelson_."

Mackie, the new pilot of the Blitz, nodded. "I _thought_ that was the Abomination."

Dearka and Yzak just stared at both of them for a second. "Is there a _reason_ we didn't kill those two there?" The Duel's pilot looked ready to chew through a battleship's bulkhead on pure anger.

Athrun cut off Dearka. "Yes, it's called not being arrested in Orb for being spies and getting ourselves shot."

Back in the cab, Flay looked over at Kira. "That was your friend?"

He just nodded back miserably. "Yeah. Athrun Zala."

"Zala. As in the Zala on the PLANT supreme council?" Flay had to wince at that. "That means ZAFT knows for sure we are here. We had better let the captain know."

"I- don't know that it is a good idea." The young man looked disturbed by the turn of events.

"You know they are going to ambush us the moment we leave port. And considering how well our last battle turned out, I'd rather not swim back to Orb." She tried to smile cheekily to lessen the impact.

Kira sighed heavily. She was right. If he tried to ignore it or just got himself ready, the ship could be sunk. How would that protect it?

* * *

At that same time, Andy Waltfield was sitting on his bunk in the brig of the Archangel. Other than the occasional visit from Kira and Murrue, it had all in all been rather quiet. But it was time to leave this ship, if at all possible. He _really_ did not want to find himself imposing on the hospitality of the Earth Alliance headquarters in Alaska.

"Lunch time," the lead solider said, slipping the tray through the slot.

"Ah! Coffee! Not up to my blend, but still always good!" Andy exclaimed. He quickly ate about half of the lunch and then with visible relish, took a deep sip of his coffee. "Hmm. More bitter than normal." His comment drew a grin from the two soldiers. He took another deep sip, relishing the coffee. Suddenly, his hand shaking, he dropped his cup. "Poison?" he gasped out.

The soldier looked shocked as Andy collapsed while groaning in pain.

"Get medical!" the first guard called out. "Hang in there, Andy."

Andy rolled his eyes at the man, wide in fear even as his hands went to his neck as his breathing stopped with a choking noise. After thirty seconds, he collapsed; not breathing and unmoving.

The brig guard broke rules, opening the cell. He barely saw the blur as the Coordinator's foot smashed into the his temple.

"I'm glad I can act." The Coordinator locked the cell that had been his home for the last month. Andy picked up the body and dashed out the door, turning to the left and was around the corner in the opposite direction from the infirmary.

Now all he had to do was change his clothing quickly, exit the ship and escape onto the island.

* * *

Cagalli stood on the balcony of her father's home. She heard her father walk up behind her.

"Have you heard the latest news?" he asked mildly.

"That group that claims they created the new Coordinators? They are supposed to be a bridge between Naturals and the Coordinators in space?" The blonde had listened to the old man explaining his reasons on live broadcast.

"We have some information that these 'Neo-Coordinators' are actually just Coordinators created with additional genetic modifications to suppress their super-human abilities until they are almost adults," Uzumi said as he watched the Sun dip to the horizon.

"Hmm. I would bet that bursts of adrenaline could awaken them earlier. Both Flay and Miriallia awoke during or just after a battle." She narrowed her eyes in thought.

"Unfortunately, this has just given both sides more reasons to hate each other." Her father sighed as he stroked his chin. "Such anger and no one but Orb to see the middle, that we are stronger for both our Naturals and Coordinators."

"So it was a misguided idea. If only there were someone to bridge the gap between them both."

Uzumi could only agree with his daughter. Though he wondered if he should tell her that she might really be the closest thing to that bridge?

* * *

They were powering north west from the Orb Union, trying to avoid the gathering ZAFT fleet near Hawaii. According to what intelligence that the Earth Alliance was bothering to send to the Archangel, ZAFT was preparing for an attack on Panama. That attack would cripple the Earth Alliance from supporting their Moon bases.

If that happened, Murrue thought morosely, then ZAFT would likely defeat any remaining space fleets and then hold the high ground. And those who hold the high ground would have an overwhelming advantage to subjugating Earth at their leisure.

Miriallia looked out the window. "Is that the Marshall Islands?" she asked.

"Yes. This is about as close as we are going. Not much here these days. At least not after what ZAFT did to the garrison forces over a year ago," Murrue explained.

Sai called out out just twenty minutes later, "Contact! Four mobilesuits. It's the stolen G-Weapons!"

"Begin operation Counter-Punch," Mirrue announced.

The _Archangel _spat out smoke cannisters in a wide area. It was completely hidden from view almost instantly.

Athrun narrowed his eyes. "They are prepared, aren't they?" The rest of his team could only agree.

Yzak had his own ideas though. He would bet that the Strike would launch first, followed by the pilot of that Mobeius Zero in a SkyGrasper... and then the 'Abomination' in the last SkyGrasper. So when he saw the Strike launch, he moved to roughly the same area where it had launched from as Mu's SkyGrasper shot from the opposite linear catapult. When his sensors detected the burst of of the electromagnetic accelerator, he was one hundred percent ready.

Mu grinned ferally as he rocketed out of the smoke, spiraling upwards. "Sucker bet two is a go."

Duel swung its beam saber, ready to chop the hapless SkyGrasper in half. That was when a new mobilsuit smashed into him out of the smoke, beam saber to beam saber. "What the hell?" He barely managed to miss having his head removed, though he lost most of his right shoulder's armor.

"Flay Allster, ASTRAY-Strike, ready for combat." The red-headed pilot just snarled around her smile as she pushed back the Duel with another heavy slash. Her Orb ASTRAY looked exactly like the standard Orb mass produced unit except for its colors, which more closely matched Strikes with red and blue instead of red and black. With the addition of Phase Shift armor laminated to the suit, it was a reasonable match for the G-Weapon Duel at the very minimum. The Archange's ground crew had toiled for most of the last two weeks adding that ability. Even at the expense of most of the spare laminate that was supposed to be used to repair all five Gundams.

"They've got a _second_ mobilesuit? How did they manage that?" Dearka asked, even as he dodged the _Archangel's _first attack with it's Gotfrieds through the smoke.

"They must have convinced Orb to give it to them," Athrun said, even as he and Kira battled with their mobilesuits. In retrospect, Orb having mobilesuits made perfect sense. They _were _there originally in Heliopolis helping the Earth Alliance build the suits they were in right this moment, after all.

The pilot of the Blitz, Mackie Denzen, grunted. "They've got us fairly well blocked, Zala." And he'd only managed to wing that things engines this time. It was barely impeding its movement.

"Tell me something I don't know," Athrun snapped back, even as he had to dodge on his GuuL or lose his left hand and its beam saber.

Kira suddenly shouted out, "Now!" on the open channel. Mu suddenly snapped around and fired at Dearka's Buster.

Dearka dodged the fighter adroitly, but when the ASTRAY and Strike converged on him in a very well timed pincer he was in instant deep trouble. His GuuL exploded even as Strike carved his right arm and head from the Buster as the ASTRAY chopped off one leg and into the flying platform.

"Retreat! Drive them back." Athrun followed his own orders, unleashing a heavy salvo. Athrun was cursing himself. He had forgotten just how good Kira was. It looked like the 'Abomination' had improved a lot, too.

The Duel swooped in and caught the Buster before it could hit the water, swooping off on his own Guul.

"We should finish them off," Flay said even as the ASTRAY Strike landed on the top of the _Archangel._ "Without surprise, we are going to be in a much tougher fight next time."

Kira closed his eyes for a second. "Think you can pull it off, Mu?" He was hoping that he would not. He did not want to kill his best friend that way.

"I _should_ be able to pull it off." Mu sent his SkyGrasper behind the smoke enshrouded _Archangel_ in a long loop to get directly behind the GAT-X series.

For ten long minutes, he thought he had succeeded. There were two things he had not factored on. One was that the G-Weapons had better sensors than his SkyGrasper and Two, that Buster was facing backwards.

It was only a last second dodge due to his 'spatial awareness' that allowed Mu to barely avoid the bracketing fire from two DINNs that appeared from his back quarter. He suddenly found himself fighting for his life. Five minutes later, the _Archangel_ hove into view as Kira fired with the Strike's main launcher cannon, exploding the DINN that was trying to gun him down. The other DINN tried to refreat, but a missile shower from the battleship-carrier finished its too slow pilot off before Flay could bracket it with her particle beam cannon.

"Damn it." Flay had really hoped they could get rid of those guys, as she knew they were at least indirectly related to the cause of her father's death.

Back at the _Horatio Nelson_, Yzak was having almost the same thoughts about her and the death of their friend Nichol.

* * *

Flay lay her hand on Kira's chest as she listened to his heartbeat while they lay on her bed that night, skin to skin. "I wish we could stay like this forever."

Kira cupped her cheek softly. "So do I, but we are nearly to JOSH-A." He guided her face up to his own for a soft kiss.

"Do you think it will be bad?" she asked. She had to hold back her fear that the Earth Alliance headquarters would split them up... or worse.

"I don't know. We'll just have to do the best we can." Kira's violet eyes stared into her deep blue ones for a long moment. "I love you."

Her voice was caught in a mire of emotions. Finally, she managed to say, "I- I love you so much." She then kissed him for everything she was worth.

"I'll always come back," he murmured to her.

* * *

Athrun really did not like how things were turning out. After pushing the mechanics on the _Horatio Nelson_, they'd barely managed to cobble some repairs on Yzak and Dearka's mobilesuits overnight. They _should not_ have been ready for the very quick attack just the next day.

But so far, they'd been in a slugging match with the _Archangel_ and its two mobilesuits for ten minutes and it was turning out ugly. The extra DINNs and GOOhNs they had brought had been dealt with far too easily. They were hurting the ship, but Kira and the 'Abomination' were hurting them too.

Mu was flying for everything he was worth. Being the professional he was, he did not question Miriallia when she said the second SkyGrasper was launching. He really hoped that Tolle knew what he was doing. But everyone had to fly their first combat mission.

Tolle was quite serious. "Tolle Koening, SkyGrasper Two, launching," he announced over the combat channel. He immediately tried to put some distance between him and melee, going for the long range support rather than attacking the ZAFT pilots directly.

Duel and ASTRAY-Strike were slamming their beam sabers in a brutal melee only two hundred meters in front of the _Archangel_, in between the rugged hills of the island. There were tears and rents all across their suits. Both pilots were almost screaming in their anger. It was going to come down to which battery would give out first.

Dearka fired again at the downed battleship, moving behind another hill to avoid its counter attack. "Shit, this is turning into a mess." Suddenly, his sensors made out that he was painted with a laser designator. He saw a SkyGrasper and fired his heavy particle cannon just as the _Archangel_ fired its Gotfrieds _through_ the hill he'd been hiding behind.

On the _Archangel _and in all the stolen GAT-X mobilsuits, the SkyGrasper and Buster disappeared from the status-link.

"No. Dearka?" Athrun couldn't believe that. Another friend, gone? As if a damn had burst within him, he suddenly started an all out attack on the Strike. "DAMN YOU!"

Kira could not believe it. His first, best friend from Heliopolis was just gone. "Athrun! YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!" he shouted as he responded to the primal level of the fight.

Mackie was about to intervene, but decided that he did not want to get in the middle of that fight at all. Still in his Mirage Colloid invisibility, he headed towards the other big fight in three quick hops from the larger island. While the Duel and that second mobilesuit were slugging it out, they were not overwhelmingly faster than he knew he could make his battered suit work.

He was just getting around the back of the ASTRAY when Kira and Athrun's climatic fight ended... with both mobilesuits dropping off their tactical net.

"No, Kira. Don't leave me," Flay screamed, her eyes wide in shock.

"Now it's just you and that flying gnat," Yzak said to himself with a nasty grin.

Something seemed to burst within Flay as she strove to overcome this obstacle. Yzak had just a moment to realized _something_ was wrong before he was desperately parrying the ASTRAY's saber and shield, only to lose his leg as his foes kick lashed out impossibly fast.

The ASTRAY's beam saber jabbed down on his shoulder, severing the linkage and controls. It was an instantly disabling move. Flay was about to streak off when her sensors suddenly warned her of an attack at nearly point blank range. The only reason she was would live is that she was still in her hyper-advanced potential mode, sending her ASTRAY whirling away.

The Blitz's beam shot still hit, but it only destroyed her Aile Striker and melted off the ASTRAY's left arm. With only a split second of pneumatic control left, Flay spun the mobilesuit around and relieved it of both arms with her beam saber while kicking it away.

Mackie managed to stabilize the Blitz before his own hydraulics gave out... right in front of the _Archangel._ "Shit. This is just our fucking day." He opened his cockpit and held up his hands in surrender.

Murrue was shocked, as basically every combatant except Mu was suddenly out of the battle. "Send out a recovery team."

"But Captain, we don't have any ability to get to the island that Strike and the Aegis finished their fight on," Natarle said from the CiC deep in the ship.

"Kira-" Miriallia asked.

"Is probably dead. There was a huge explosion over there," the XO of the Archangel snapped out. "Damn it, we are almost defenseless here!"

"I'm detecting DINNs at long range!" Sai called out.

The captain closed her eyes as if she was in pain. "Recover the ASTRAY and capture those ZAFT pilots. Then ready to depart for JOSH-A immediately." Her lips were flat in anger. "Miriallia, please send a signal to Orb requesting a humanitarian aid mission to see if there were any survivors."

That Miriallia would do in a heartbeat. It was just too sad that was _all _they do right now.

* * *

The Orb Union soldier led Cagalli to the room in the airplane where the ZAFT pilot was being kept. "Athrun Zala."

The pilot they had found looked up from his bunk in the infirmary. "Who are you?"

"I'm Cagalli Athha, the leader of Orb's rescue mission. You should be thankful that we had a plane close by." The blonde looked him over. "Another six hours and you would have likely died." A broken arm, punctured lung and second degree burns through his flight suit were a catalog of his wounds

"So now I'm a prisoner of Orb, the lackey of the Atlantic Federation. How wonderful." His green eyes were full of anger.

"While Orb may have been involved with the Atlantic Federation on mobilesuit design production, we still hold ourselves apart from this conflict. We have no desire to join in your war, Athrun of ZAFT. We only desire to protect ourselves and our neutrality from both sides. You will be repartripated to your home land."

"So you hop into the Atlantic Federation's bed only when forced?" he sneered as he insulted her.

Her slap was thunderously loud. "We had no choice. Mobilesuits... They are an overwhelming force upon the battlefield against older technology. Without that, we would be leaving ourselves open to be conquered by anyone with mobilesuits. And that can not be allowed." She visibly got a hold of her temper. "Where is the pilot of the Strike?"

"Dead. I killed him." There. He had finally said it. Though it was closer to a sob.

"Bastard. Kira was-"

"Still too nice. I should know. He was my best friend on Copernicus."

"If he was your best friend, how could you kill him?" Cagalli yelled out.

"Because he had become my enemy." That was when the tears came to Athrun's eyes finally

* * *

Flay awoke to the familiar ceiling of the _Archangel's_ infirmary again. She frowned in thought again as she tried to piece together her last memories. All she could remember why frantically trying to get her ASTRAY to move. Any movement at all. "Kira. Where's Kira?" she called out. She suddenly realized that she was tied down by the heaviest straps the infirmary had.

The divider curtain was pulled back showing Lt. Natarle Bagueril. "Ensign Allster. I-" She stopped. Even she could tell how much Flay was dependent on Kira. "Kira Yamato is MIA. It looks like Aegis and Strike took each other out of the battle at the same time. There was no response from Strike nor any time to do anything but flee towards JOSH-As perimeter defense."

"B-but-but-" Flay's fragile mind could not encompass a world where there was no Kira.

"Flay, I need you to be strong. Kira would want you to keep going." Natarle waited a long moment. "Flay?" Not seeing _any_ response from the girl, she looked in the deep blue eyes... that did not even blink.

Natarle was knocking on the door to the captain's office just ten minutes later. Murrue answered the door. "That doesn't look so good," she said as she looked up from her paperwork.

"The doctor thinks her catatonic state is just temporary, a way of blocking her pain at the loss of Kira for a while. We still have a few days before we actually reach anchorage at JOSH-A, so she will probably be coherent by then." The second in command did _not_ want to care about Flay, but it was obvious that she was suffering.

"And our prisoners?" Murrue's eyes seemed very intent.

"Mu made sure that Yzak and Mackie are in the brig under a watchful guard. Along with instructions not to open their cells with anything less than six of them ready to fill those Coordinators full of wholes first. Even if they _are_ dying of poison." Natarle smiled grimly at that small jest in black humor. "The final pilot, Dearka Elsman, may not make it. We've amputated his right arm, but he's got severe burns and internal bleeding. The medic is only giving him a twenty percent chance of living until morning."

The medic had not counted on how tough Coordinators really were though.

* * *

Captain William Sutherland looked at the crew of the Archangel with distaste. He had already been quite scathing in his remarks about the crew and their 'success' in making it to Alaska two weeks after their final battle.

"And Flay Allster." He stared at the passive looking girl for a long moment. "I have a hard time imagining you as any sort of heroine in saving this ship."

"I'm not." She stared at him for a long moment. "Sir."

"I've heard you referred to as the 'Abomination' even by ZAFT. If you aren't a heroine, what are you, Ensign Allster?" He had a sneer on his lips.

"I'm a monster, sir." Her tone was entirely placid, with no inflection at all. "I'm only useful for killing people. That's what monsters do."

Murrue, Natarle and Mu were just staring at the girl in shock. They had seen how placid she had seemed after waking, but to hear this was totally unexpected.

"You sound like you hate those damn space monsters. Abomination."

"I hate everything."

"Even Kira Yamato?" Sutherland asked in a taunting voice.

"He promised he would come back. So I- I hate him most of all," she yelled out. Her eyes were wild and she clenched her fists even tighter.

The captain just smiled. He could use this anger.

* * *

"Goodbye, Lt. Badguriel. Lt. Commander La Flaga. Ensign Allster." Murrue saluted the three officers in front of her near the main exit hatch of the _Archangel. _The two most famous members of her crew and the one officer that had disparaged her commands the entire trip were all being transferred from the ship after almost a week sitting in port. Murrue could almost feel the noose tightening around her neck.

Mu smiled encouragingly to Murrue. Natarle nodded as she saluted back. And Flay? She just saluted back, turned and then walked off.

In JOSH-A, Mu and Flay were escorted to a submarine that was filling with soldiers and crew. When the air raid warnings went off, Mu took off to investigate. Flay looked like she wanted to follow, but the two soldiers had pulled their pistols.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. But you are going to have to board that submarine. I am authorized to shoot you if you resist." The soldier looked very determined.

"I see." The young girl seemed to weigh the options, but allowed herself to be led into the submarine.

A lieutenant pointed her into quarters with four bunks. "This is yours. As highest ranking officer, you are in charge of the three ratings here."

"Yes, sir." Flay took in the other three young woman as the door was closed behind her, shutting off the view of the two guards. The click of the lock was deafening.

"Those boys didn't look too happy to see you there, honey." The big blonde woman with a crewcut hair was appraising her with narrowed eyes.

"I am Ensign Allster." Flay clicked her heals of her boots together.

The other woman jumped to their feet. The shortest, yet still a good two inches taller than Flay, spoke up with a salute. "Crewman Harris."

"Petty Officer Yumi," the final woman said. She looked older and more grizzled as she saluted.

"Crewman VolTovisk," the first woman said as she saluted.

"They must be packing us tight in here." Flay was giving them all a serious look as she accepted their salutes.

"We're considered trouble makers that just _happen_ to be useful. Now that we have that Cyclops system installed, they want us out of JOSH-A." Yumi just shrugged as if it were no big deal.

"Cyclops system? Like at Endymion?" Flay actually showed emotion at that; surprise. She narrowed her eyes in deep thought. "And this attack- This is ZAFT's operation Split Break. It's all a trap."

"Oh, you know about Endymion?" Yumi asked as she played with her portable computer.

"You don't fly wingman to the Hawk of Endymion and fail to pick up a bit about _that_ fight," Flay replied icily.

VolTovisk blinked. "Oh, you were on the _Archangel?_ I'd heard a rumor that Earth Alliance High Command doesn't trust that ship very far. Even if it did battle all the way from L3 to JOSH-A via Africa, of all places."

"Let me guess, the crew did not show proper anti-Coordinator sentiment?" Flay was starting to feel an overwhelming anger build up in her.

Harris nodded slowly. "You're the Abomination." She was suddenly incredibly pale.

"That's what they call me." Flay took Harris's portable computer away. "Oh, you hooked yourself up to the SONAR array?"

"Yea, ma'am."

"I guess you wanted to see all those 'space monsters' die as this submarine retreated?" Flay's expression was almost begging her to deny the accusation.

All three technicians nodded mutely.

"Good. They _all_ deserve to die. Killing or to be killed, that's all a monster is worth."

The three technicians swallowed mutely as they realized that the rumors that the 'Abomination' actually hating Coordinators may have been very, very true.

* * *

Jackie Tonumura was deep in the _Archangel's_ CiC as the ZAFT forces continued to fight there way towards JOSH-A, the headquarters of the Earth Alliance. While most of the forces that ZAFT was sending against them were air or surface models on GuuLs, he had kept an eye out for underwater suits. A line of static was diffusing the ZAFT SONAR that he was monitoring as part of his system.

He brought up a diagnostic. "What's this?" It took a minute, but he found an encoded message in the ultra-high frequency that was using a GAT-X series encryption. He read the message and then paled. "Captain! I have an unconfirmed message. Transferring to your console."

Murrue was way too busy fighting her ship and swearing at pilots that thought they could land on _her_ ship during the middle of a crisis. "What?" She reread the message again. _**Archangel: Beware Cyclops installed under JOSH-A. 15:54 count-down. FA.**_ And then it repeated, with the time counting down. "A Cyclops system?" she exclaimed, shocking the rest of the crew. FA? Flay Allster? Perhaps she held some loyalty to the ship after all.

"That's right. How did you learn of that?" Mu asked as he ran onto the bridge. "Those Headquarter bastards are sacrificing us as a pawn to destroy all these ZAFT forces. So what will you do, captain?" Mu was looking at her expectantly.

Murrue made her decision, signaling a withdrawal after 'successfully' completing their mission of drawing the ZAFT forces to within twenty kilometers of JOSH-A.

In the launching bay of the _Archangel_ Mu settled himself in for a fight. He readied himself on the Linear Accelerator. "Mu La Flaga, ASTRAY-Strike, launching!" he called out as the modified ASTRAy launched. He was glad Murdoch had repaired it. They had even started working on Duel and Blitz, scavenging what parts they could from the demolished Buster.

The first GINN had just a moment to be surprised when Mu gunned it down with the Strike's particle beam cannon that he was currently using.

"An Earth Alliance mobilesuit?" a DINN pilot exclaimed. "We'll show that Natural you need more than a mobilesuit to defeat us." The DINN then dive bombed while spinning, a normal tactic that confused most pilots that had not faced off against mobilesuits.

Mu answered with a particle beam shot that sheared off his leg to send it crashing into the waters. "Sorry, I'm no rookie." Confidently, he blazed a path through the ZAFT forces as the _Archangel _followed through the gap.

He was almost feeling sorry for the bullet and cannon armed DINN and GINNs, until his overuse of the particle rifle drained his battery and his phase shift armor de-phased. "Oh, crap." The ASTRAY-Strike landed on the _Archangel's_ upper deck with a skidding stumble. He barely managed to bring up his shield just in time to stop his ASTRAY's body from being perforated by a GINN that smelled blood.

"Mu!" Murrue had never felt more helpless as the GINN was about to kill the brash pilot only a hundred feet in front of her.

Out of almost nowhere, the GINN was suddenly disarmed as a Gundam appeared and blasted the rifle with its particle beam rifle. "This is Kira Yamato in Freedom to Archangel," a confident young man's voice said across the open channel.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Mu replied as he staggered the ASTRAY to its feet. "But we have no time for chit-chat. There's a Cyclops system under JOSH-A

"A Cyclops system?" Kira's voice was very startled. This was a move to rebalance the force disparity across the whole planet by wiping out the ZAFT superiority in one super-microwave bang.

The Freedom locked on and disarmed any active mobilesuit near the Archangel while Kira started to transmit a warning to anyone nearby. Even so, it was barely a handful of ZAFT mobilesuits that heeded the warning.

After the Cyclops had done its job, vaporizing hundreds of helpless combatants on both sides, Kira landed the Freedom on an outcropping near the _Archangel_. He rode down his lift line to the ground to meet with Mu, Murrue, Murdoch and Miriallia.

"You made it kid," Mu said with a laugh. "Are you part of ZAFT now?" taking in the uniform flightsuit he was wearing.

Kira doffed his helmet suddenly. "No, I'm not part of ZAFT. This was so that I could steal the Freedom."

Mu and Murrue stared at the scars on the left half of his face. It looked heavily lacerated and scored by fire. "Kira, what happened?" Murrue asked even as Miriallia gasped as she finally saw the scars.

He unconsciously tried to hide his wounds by pulling his hair down to cover it. "I almost didn't survive Aegis. I'm nearly up to full strength, but I'll need a very skilled plastic surgeon to fix my face."

"I'm sure you'll get the help you need. There aren't exactly a lot of places for us to go. So this ship will be heading to the Orb Union." Murrue looked very serious as she made this pronouncement.

"Eh? Not back to the Earth Alliance?" Mu asked, making sure he was on the same page.

"They've ignored us until they decided we needed to be stabbed in the back and destroyed. I'm not feeling very loyal to them right now."

* * *

It had been a long week, but Flay was finally at her new 'duty' assignment in San Francisco naval yards. She was escorted by only a single guard to a heavily fortified underground base that she was sure did not exist in any official capacity.

She was left to her own devices, so went to find the cafeteria where a few technicians and three older kids were sitting on the couches watching the television. They were wearing modified 'volunteer' uniform jackets with no rank insignia.

"Ah, Ensign Allster. I see you've met your new teammates. This is Orga, Shani and Clotho. They are the prototype pilots of our next series of GAT-X mobilesuits," a lieutenant said as she spotted Flay looking at the three 'volunteers'.

Orga raised an eyebrow at that as he pulled his nose from a book. "She's on our team? We haven't seen her before during any of the adjustment treatments."

Lieutenant Marsha Garcia looked over Flay with interest. "She has no need of those treatments." Her short brown hair and aquiline eyes had a very hard edge to them.

"She's a fucking Coordinator? What the hell is this crap?" Shani almost screamed out.

"No, she's a 'Neo-Coordinator' that hates them as much as you do," Marsha snapped out. "She's here because we need another pilot that can stand against those ZAFT freaks."

"No way does she touch my Calamity!" Orga's eyes were almost wild as his tight green hair almost slipped loose to cover his eyes.

The other two pilots chimed in about their Forbidden and Raider GAT-X series mobilesuits.

"That's enough. Shani, you know that there are still two more GAT-X units. The Impact and Claymore might not have as much firepower or versatility as your suits, but they are still powerful units." Marsha so hated working with the three Biologic CPUs.

Flay nodded her head. "More prototypes. So the Atlantic Federation did two separate projects in parallel."

The lieutenant and the three pilots looked surprised at that. "Oh? That's right, you actually flew the Strike, didn't you?" Marsha asked.

"The only suit we didn't get to pull out profile data from was the Aegis." Flay held up a data packet from her pocket. "I was wondering when people were going to ask for that data and the Natural MOS we developed. You'd almost think that people didn't trust me." Flay was looking Marsha in the eyes directly when she said that.

"You have the combat data profile of all the Heliopolis suits except Aegis?" The officer just gulped as she realized someone before her had been very, very lax in getting that data.

"And the ASTRAY series of mobilesuits of the Orb Union." Flay almost let a smile slip on for just a second.

* * *

"So, Ensign Allster was the person that brought us this data, Lt. Garcia?" Muruta Azreal asked as he looked at the data packet.

"Yes, Mr. Azreal. And she was the pilot for the Strike and a purloined Orb Union ASTRAY. She even helped create a Natural MOS for Orb's M-1 ASTRAYs." Marsha was standing ramrod straight in front of the industrialist's massive, obsidian desk that was polished finely enough to see him in reflection.

"Some people would think that she was a traitor, several times over." Muruta looked at her as if to see if she challenged the orders.

"Morenroete _was_ involved in the original Heliopolis GAT-X project. It appears Captain Ramius used that pretext to continue the trade of technology between the _Archangel _and Morgenroete. Much of this information was in the records and reports she filed after she made it to JOSH-A, but she was ignored by Captain Sutherland as from a dissident and compromised captain."

Muruta frowned at that. "That was a trifle short-sighted of him, wasn't it? So you are recommending that we do not immediately deploy her to Panama's defense, but use her to speed up the deployment of either Impact or Claymore?"

"She's basically been a test pilot that even successfully used a mass-produced unit to fight a GAT-X prototype to a standstill in its bailiwick. The Duel may have been the most basic GAT-X unit, but it was still formidable in it's own right. The Archangel's ground crew modified the ASTRAY to improve its mobility and added Phase Shift, but it really wasn't that high level of a modification."

"She'd probably do well in the Impact then. That's our own version of the Strike that we were about to scrap, right?"

"Taken to our 'next level' with the addition of Trans-Phase Armor and more efficient particle beam weaponry. It's almost triple the original Strike's power. And now that I've taken the time to review the data we have of the Strike, that should really mean something. The Strike Daggers with the Natural MOS should be more than adequate to hold Panama," the lieutenant said briskly.

"Maybe we were a bit abrupt to declare that design a failure. Specializing is one thing, but a high performance 'general' model has its own advantages too." Muruta was tapping a finger as he thought.

"And the Claymore?" Marsha asked.

"Everything we've seen was that the Duel was no match even against the Strike with just a beam saber. As a close quarters weapon, it was severely lacking. I'm not going to waste any more money on it."

* * *

"Damn you," Orga swore as the Calamity again failed to defeat the very mobile Impact. The NeoCoordinator was far too adept at blocking him with the forearm shield.

Suddenly, an alert flashed across their view. 'Simulation ended.'

Flay was already stepping out of her simulation while the other test pilot was still swearing at losing his chance to defeat her. "Clotho, Shani. What's going on?"

"The Strike Daggers got their asses handed to them in Panama," Clotho said as he pointed to the breaking news covering the battle. "ZAFT used some sort of super-EMP weapon and shorted all of them out."

Flay frowned. "This is really bad."

"Nah, that was obviously a desperation move. We'll be able to take Panama back in no time flat," Shani said with a shrug. He looked happy at that thought.

"Have all those drugs rotted your brains? Without Panama, the Earth Alliance forces in space are stranded. They might not _last_ six months if the PLANTs push against them. They'll control the high ground." She was already pulling up the specifications on the four GAT-X weapons they were developing to make sure they could survive an EMP strike that lost them Panama.

"We'll just have to take one of our enemies space ports away then." Orga shrugged. It was fairly obvious.

"ZAFT is probably aware of that, too."

"Flay Allster, please report to Doctor Grimes for your appointment," a loudspeaker blared.

Flay turned and looked at the speaker in dread and anger. It was time to become... re-adjusted again.

* * *

Flay had to admit that she had not expected the Earth Alliance to target the last 'neutral' space port of Orb instead of the ZAFT controlled ones weeks later. So here she was sitting in a cramped Earth Alliance carrier with the three psychos getting ready to assault it. The four mobilesuits barely fit the carrier. It was obvious that no one had thought about building a custom mobilesuit sea carrier like the _Archangel _was for space.

This was Muruta's fleet in all but name. She still felt her skin crawl under his eyes. He would not touch her, but she could almost read his desire to dominate her in any way, shape or form.

"Well, it appears that Orb has failed to stand with their brothers and sisters of Earth. They have now declared themselves our enemy. Destroy them all!" Muruta was almost laughing giddily.

The Calamity and Raider launched as a pair, while Forbidden headed off under water. Above them flew cargo carriers that released Strike Daggers during the missile bombardment to parachute down to the shores.

"Flay Allster, Impact launching!" she announced, directly against the disdain of the other three pilots. The Impact flew out sideways, its variable geometry Typhoon Striker pack letting her skim the sea towards Orb. That was when she spotted something she didn't dare believe in.

Was that the _Archangel_? But it was supposedly destroyed at JOSH-A.

The Orb Union's defense ASTRAYs were setting up a blistering counterfire, but it was obvious that they were totally outclassed by the GAT-X series prototypes _and_ the Strike Daggers. Forbidden was almost entirely immune to their weapons, be it particle weapons or kinetic. Calamity just functioned on the concept that 'dead people don't shoot back' and was busy killing as many ASTRAYs as possible. The ASTRAY M-1 mobilesuits seemed to be trying to rally, but with the three high performance machines, they could not fight effectively.

It was Raider that ran into the first bit of trouble, when a rebuilt Strike nearly took off his head. Then it ran into a _second_ Strike, though this one was all of a single tone of red or pink. Clotho screamed out, "Damn you!" even as he managed to avoid their attacks. He was forced to switch between mobilesuit and mobilearmor modes rapidly to stay alive.

Mu barely avoided an attack, his spacial awareness sending him skidding sideways at the last second as Impact made its presence known. He immediately noted its heritage as a successor to the Strike, even as he noted the differences. It was slightly bulkier and was mostly gray with black and red highlights. The double variable striker pack thrusters made it extremely fast and maneuverable. "These are going to be a pain," he muttered to himself.

Calamity had run into another new suit, instead of just the ASTRAYs he'd started blithely slaughtering. The Freedom led three high perfomance ASTRAY-Strikes against him. And the pilots of the trio were obviously skilled. The three new ASTRAYs seemed to be faster and tougher, carrying particle beam resistant shields. He skidded backwards out of their range before they could swarm him under with beam sabers.

But it was that new flying unit that was giving him twice as many problems as the other three, so he focused on it. The trio of ASTRAY-Strikes then switched to the Forbidden, even as Mu in the original Strike took the battle to the Impact. Flay danced just out of his beam saber range.

Rouge Strike was flying after the Raider, but just could not get a clean bead on it. Cagailli was suddenly dodging for all she was worth. He was as fast as a Coordinator, which in his advanced suit was incredibly dangerous. She almost regretted forcing her father to allow her out to fight, even if that had in turn forced him to reveal the Rouge Strike instead of her taking the _Archangel's_ spare ASTRAY-Strike.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Orb burning from the indiscriminate missile barrage earlier.

Suddenly, as if a damn had burst within her, the Rouge Strike suddenly sped up as her SEED activated with a burst of emotions. She charged the Raider who was suddenly facing an opponent that was now _equaling_ his own power and speed. He barely managed to avoid the red beam saber and had to flee into the clouds.

"Come back here!" Cagalli yelled out, still in her heightened SEED mode.

Flay had to give Mu some credit. He was holding out remarkably well under her superior mobilesuit's attack. Suddenly, Strike and Freedom switched places to give Mu a breather.

"Watch out, Kira, that ones is deadly."

Kira replied with, "I understand." Something about this mobilesuit jangled on his nerves.

Flay, on the other hand, did not really have any idea or premonition of who she was facing. As it wasn't Strike (and Mu as the pilot) she felt no compunction to hold back, blaring at full thrust against the Freedom over the waves. Impact and Freedom slammed into each other, beam saber to beam saber in a brutal dance of death.

"He was holding back against me?" Mu sputtered out in surprise. He barely avoided Forbidden's curving beam attacks because of that surprise.

Kira and Flay both narrowed their eyes as they took the measure of their opponent. Beam sabers clashed, shields blocked particle beam and each could tell that they were protected against kinetic attacks with Phase Shift armor.

That was when a new mobilesuit, painted bright red, appeared to drive a wedge between Freedom and Impact. Kira took the opportunity to quickly drive Forbidden away from the Strike and Elite ASTRAYs before it could finish off ASTRAY 01.

Shani suddenly lurched in his Forbidden as pain started to wrack his body even as his power was showing it was starting to get low. "No, the drugs are wearing off." He suddenly retreated back under water.

Flay was busy fending off the dual beam saber of the red mobilesuit. Unlike Freedom, she did not think she'd faced this pilot. So he was just an enemy. They were a blur of black and red across the ocean, even as Kira rocketed Freedom back into that fight.

Duel and Blitz stood on the shore of Orb, watching the fight. They couldn't even get close to this fight thanks to their lack of mobility and range. Yzak swore violently at the loss of their main weapons. What he would not have given for a GuuL right then. He had to console himself with fighting against the Strike Daggers that had landed.

Raider reappeared with Rouge Strike still on his heels to quickly evacuate Calamity to retreat towards the Earth Alliance fleet as he felt his own drugs burning out of his system. Impact followed them back to the cover of the missiles and CWIS of the fleet. The fleet then pulled back to regroup under retreat flares.

On the island, Strike Daggers lay among the ruins of ASTRAYs as smoke and fire covered most of the combat area.

Flay sat in her cockpit breathing heavily. He was supposed to be dead. He'd promised to come back to her but he was with the _Archangel_. "Recharge and repair Impact immediately." Her voice was harsh with anger.

"But we haven't received any orders to-" the mobilesuit crew boss replied back.

"Unlike the other three, I can sortie immediately after repairs. Like just in _case_ they decide to throw a mobilesuit assault at us before we are ready!" she snapped out. How could she verify if that was Kira? During a battle just would not work.

Twenty minutes later, Impact was at one hundred percent. Flay went over all of her controls making sure everything was perfect. Her Impact's left shield-arm smashed the catwalk up to block the pilot's ready room even its beam saber activated to burn through the locks and hydraulics of the armored door right next to her.

"Ensign Allster, where are you going?" Muruta shouted from the bridge.

"Out," she responded curtly. Impact took two steps sideways and then launched into the air at full speed.

"Then you are tuning _nemesis_ on us?" The keyword spoken by the leader of Blue Cosmos unleashed an anger within her towards coordinators before she could cut the mike.

Kira looked up from his group hug with Athrun and Cagalli as air raid warnings started to sound. So soon? They weren't ready.

"Its just one mobilesuit. And it doesn't seem to be flying very straight," Athrun said after he got back in Justice.

"It's that fourth suit. The one that looks like it was based on Strike." Kira was already pre-flight checking Freedom. Could it really be Flay? She had been reassigned off the _Archangel_ during the JOSH-A attack during Split Break. Her fighting style seemed to match. All those hours practicing against each other before they left Orb that first time had ingrained her style into him. "I'll go in first. Don't kill her."

"Her?" Athrun blurted out in surprise. "She was busy trying to kill you just half an hour ago!"

"She let up once she realized it was me." Kira wondered if she would again.

"The Abomination; Flay Allster." This was the girl that had killed Nichol. Athrun did not know how he would be able to deal with her. It was not like she was a valued friend from before the war.

Flay, with the last of her willpower, opened a communication channel to the forces ahead of herself to transmit a simple message. "Stop me. Please." Then the voices and lights that churned the anger within her mind swept away her last rational thought as she neared her enemies. Her breathing had turned raspy across the open line. "I'll kill you! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!" she screamed.

Murrue on the bridge of the Archangel just winced as she realized what it could be. "Kira, watch out. She might be fighting brainwashing."

_Oh, Flay._ They had really done it. They had turned the young, vain girl from Heliopolis into a killing machine. "Kira Yamato, Freedom launching!" The Freedom had barely cleared the beach when Impact slammed into it like a rabid tornado.

"DIE!" Flay sent her beam saber against Freedom, pushing him back and back again.

Athrun was about to send Justice forward into the melee when he narrowed his eyes. While there was a lot of power in each of the Impact's attacks, so they were easy to block.

Kira was thinking of the same thing. He suddenly threw the Freedom backwards, out of the range of Impact's beam saber. After a minute of trying to catch the retreating mobilesuit, Flay's imperative forced her to switch to her particle cannon.

"Stand still and just die!" But no matter how much Flay screamed, the Freedom either dodged or blocked its attack with its shield. Time seemed to be standing still in this place where they fought above the waves.

So it was very surprising when her low power alarm went off almost half an hour later. "M-must re-retreat-" she stuttered. She was almost out of power to even fly. How could that suit have out-lasted her own? That should have been impossible with all the power advancements in her own suit.

That was when Kira sent the Freedom to fire a blistering attack, sending her back towards Orb while the sun set. Seconds dragged on, but after five minutes Impact lost its phase armor and crashed onto the surf. Flay kept trying to force the thrusters to work, to send her up into the air and escape, but it was obvious even to her addled mind that she was trapped and grounded.

So when the hatch finally opened, she had her pistol out and ready to shoot the first Coordinator that would come in to attack her.

She paused when she saw him. "Kira." She struggled to not pull the trigger, her eyes wide and dilated. Luckily, long enough for her pistol to be taken away. "You finally came back." With that, she could finally collapse into his arms sobbing like a heart broken child.

* * *

Kira stood outside as the doctor sedated Flay. Colonel Kisaka stepped out, nodding for Kira and Cagalli to follow. "We aren't sure exactly what happened, but she is very confused right now."

"Captain Ramius thought it might be brainwashing." Kira felt a shameful horror at that even as Cagalli nodded her head angrily.

"Yes, quite probable. Luckily, we were able to access her mobilesuit's black box so we know her trigger word. That will make it relatively easy to deprogram." The military officer was very grim. "Of more distressing news is that her mobilesuit was at least a generation better than our ASTRAYs."

"What? How is that possible?" Cagalli asked.

"It employs a more energy effecient phase shift armor that only fully activates if it is struck. It is very cost effective in energy. So the improved power cell gives it almost three times the power and duration of our ASTRAYs. And twenty percent more duration than even the Rouge Strike."

Kira hissed out a breath. While Freedom (and Athrun's Justice) could outlast them, these new suits would be devestating against anything else.

"Can we duplicate this?" Cagalli asked.

"Yes. It should be something we can even retrofit on the _Kusanagi _or _Archangel_." Kisaka looked very grim as he said that.

"On the _Kusanagi_?" Cagalli asked suddenly.

"Yes, Cagalli. On the _Kusanagi _after it has departed our homeland." Uzumi Nara Athha looked stern as he looked down on his daughter from down the hall of the Onigiri Island's controll center. "You will be aboard her as she leaves."

"Why would you send our defense forces away during this time? Orb needs them now!"

"Becase we can not stand against a determined assault. Our bid to be able to defend ourselves against outside aggression has failed. The Atlantic Federation is mobilizing and rearming from their 3rd Fleet which has met up with their 4th Fleet." Uzumi started walking down the hall.

"What? And where will you be?" she asked.

"Myself and the rest of the government will be in the military headquarters. We shall personally make sure that the Earth Alliance has nothing to gain from us after we've destroyed our linear catapult and our records."

"So you will be in hiding here?" Kira asked intently.

"No. We have to pay for our crimes of collusion with the Earth Alliance and failure to protect Orb. We shall not leave this facility after we activate its self destruct."

"What?" She could not believe her father was advocating dieing here.

Uzumi looked determined, but haggard. "Kisaka, please escort my daughter to the _Kusanagi_. She, at least-"

"You are running away while dumping this on your daughter _while leaving her an orphan?_" Kira snapped out, stopping the older Athha.

"It is my duty that I failed. I have to pay that price-"

"That's why the Orb Union has courts that not even the great families are above! You aren't doing anything but running away instead of trying to fix the problems you have created!" Kira looked incensed. "What of your responsibility to fix this mess you've gotten your daughter and Orb into? Or are you just going to dump that on your daughter while putting her through the trauma of your death?"

"You would not understand! I have betrayed the trust of the people. I do not deserve to live!"

Cagalli looked uncertain for a second, but then her resolve hardened. "No, father. Kira is correct. You are running away from your responsibility as the Head Representative of the Families. We have a duty to fix the problems we put Orb into, even if it costs us our life and personal honor. Dying here _is_ nothing more than running away from our stern duty."

"Enough. The Earth Alliance will shortly be attacking. We must load the _Kusanagi _and _Archangel _with all the surviving ASTRAYs. Report to your ships. Kisaki, escort my daughter to the bridge of the _Kusanagi_." Uzumi turned away, intent on his business.

"My lady, if you will please accompany me. Mr. Yamato, you would be ready in your Freedom to defend the last of our transports." Colonel Kisaki put his hand gently on her shoulder.

Kira clenched his fist, but even he realized that he could not defend the whole Orb Union against the Earth Alliance in a determined assault.

* * *

Uzumi stopped during the mad preparations. The words of Cagalli and Kira bothered him. Was he in actuality running away from his responsibilities? He waved off an aid. "Elnora, how much of the government could we evacuate to space?"

"We still have one Strato-liner shuttle. That can hold up forty people. It can be ready even sooner than the _Kusanagi_ core module," she replied.

"Do that and have it on standby." The leader of Orb picked up a phone and dialed a number from memory. "Chief Magistrate Olstini. Old friend, I must speak to you of matters of legality and morality. It is because of my own foolish actions that the Earth Alliance has come down upon our heads. All of these lives of our brave countrymen lost are upon my head." He paused a second, looking at the war status monitor. "I had thought to destroy Morgenroete, our catapult and our base here on Onigiri Island personally with the self destruct to atone for that. But it was pointed out that I may be doing a disservice to our land."

The old judge on the other side of the line nodded. "It is a thorny issue, but taking action to pay for your mistakes like this is hasty. It is not your hand that wields justice in our lands, Uzumi. If, and only if, charges are brought upon you will Orb seek justice from you. If you feel you have failed Orb, then you must correct your problems yourself to the best of your abilities. Denying Orb your knowledge, you contacts and your skills at this point could hurt our country gravely."

"I am ten kinds of a fool. Kira and my daughter see more truly than I do." The stoic leader of Orb clenched the handset in anger.

"Yet they are still young, are they not? While they are the hope of the future, they must be led and guided on their journey. Do not leave them on the dark path alone, Uzumi. They still need your wisdom." The very old priest smiled suddenly. "It shows that you still have humility _and_ wisdom to learn from your students. Good bye, Uzumi, until later."

"Goodbye old friend." The head representative of Orb turned to all of the government officials. "It has been pointed out that foolishly killing ourselves here for atonement is not the correct path. Evacuate the base. We shall have our government in exile and make sure that Orb will be independent as soon as we can humanly push the Earth Alliance off our shores."

* * *

Kira breathed deeply after the brief fight with the other three Earth Alliance super-weapons. "Those guys sure are tough," he complained to his friend even as the air started turning black as they rose higher and higher on the side of the rectangular _Kusanagi _space ship.

The Freedom and Justice were standing on a side platform of the main module that had just launched into space. "I'm glad they don't have your girlfriend on their side any more." Athrun watched as the Orb ships met in orbit.

After the _Kusanagi _was fully assembled with its deep space parts to be transformed into a heavy carrier of mobilesuits, Uzumi called for a meeting on the _Archangel _with the different leaders.

"Thank you for your actions. Orb will be free, though it may take much work." Uzumi looked over at Murrue, Mu, Kisaki, Kira and his own daughter Cagalli. "The other representatives that we could not evacuate are hidden within our island population, but it appears that the Earth Alliance was only interested in our catapult. With its destruction, they have pulled back and only sent a small pacifying force to occupy the islands. Still, we are very limited. We can expect no resources from our homeland."

"The _Archangel_ and _Kusanagi _are both fully provisioned, but we will have to find some place to base ourselves," Murrue explained. "I've pulled a list of possible locations. We might be able to get a shuttle to _Ame-no-Mihashira, _the factory satellite of the Sahaku family, but that will only be in our worst cases."

Mu nodded. "We can probably find an abandoned colony in the LaGrange-4 area to hole up in."

"And it is still possible that there is something within the debris belt." Kira did not look very happy at that thought. The last time he had ventured in there they had found Junius-7.

"If only this war would come to a halt and peace return to this race of humanity." Uzumi stood, signaling the end of the meeting.

* * *

Colonel Kisaki nodded to Kira. The young Coordinator looked heartened at that as he looked down at the small bunk. "Flay. Wake up Flay."

The dark red-haired girl's eyes opened muzzily. She felt tired and lethargic, but strangely lighter. "Kira? That's really you, isn't it? I wasn't just dreaming."

His hand clasped hers tightly. "I promised I'd be back, didn't I?"

Flay's free hand traced the scars on his face tenderly. "You almost didn't, didn't you?" There was a lot of fear carried in her voice.

"It was close, but now Athrun and I are no longer enemies." He tried to smile to make light of it.

"That's good. Otherwise I'd have to kick his ass for even trying to hurt you." And she looked like she would too.

Kira chuckled at that. "So I see. Even managed to steal yourself an upgraded mobilesuit, too. The Archangel is incredibly full right now." It really was with Freedom, both Strikes, Blitz, Duel, ASTRAY-Strike and Impact. One mobilesuit had to be left ready to launch just to fit them all.

"Why are we here in space?" she asked worriedly.

"Orb has fallen to the Earth Alliance, so we escaped into space with what military forces we had to be able to free it at a better time. Uzumi Athha has been in contact with the different noble families, securing us arms and supplies. He even forced the Sahaku family to release the _Izumo_ into our fleet."

"So we are waiting until we can strike back to free our home?" she asked.

"I keep forgetting you have a dual citizenship with Orb and the Atlantic Federation. Yes, essentially. But I wanted to be here to wake you up before I leave." He stood back up from the edge of her bed.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm going to check on Athrun. He's gone to confront his father about his genocidal plans. He doesn't believe that he is really planning on the eradication of all Naturals. I fear he's planning something rash."

"In that new mobilesuit? Where did you get that?" Flay asked as she stood up. It must have been a while, as she felt slightly weak and she had been changed into her pink Earth Alliance uniform.

"It _was_ a ZAFT prototype. I guess you could say it was given to me, but really we just stole it."

"You _stole_ a ZAFT prototype mobilesuit? Well, I guess that makes up for ZAFT stealing the Earth Alliance's mobilesuits."

"Flay, you should stay here and rest up. I'm going to go to the meeting point to wait for Athrun."

She just glared at him as she sat up.

* * *

Athrun was being led out of ZAFT's main headquarters in Aprilius-1 in hand-cuffs. His meeting with his father had gone abysmally.

At least they'd taken the time to bind his wounds. He was about to be shoved into an armored truck when a flash grenade landed in the middle of the soldiers. Suddenly he was grabbed by an older soldier.

"Come on, Athrun Zala. I really don't want to wait for them to catch up and throw us _both_ in a prison cell somewhere nasty," Andrew Waltfield said as he dragged the just rescued Coordinator behind him.

"Commander? Why are you doing this?" Athrun asked.

"Later. Let's just start with the fact that I don't believe that all Naturals should be killed." Andrew led him to a hidden fighter-shuttle that he quickly launched into the air. They met up with the _Eternal_ just as it was exiting Aprilius-1. He led Athrun to the bridge, where they met up with Lacus Clyne and her XO, Andy's old girl friend Aisha.

She made her entreaty to the forces to let the _Eternal_ past, but it was ignored. Athrun gripped the edge of Lacus's command chair with his good hand as the battle progressed.

When the _Freedom _showed up, intercepting the heavy missile barrage and then disarming a half-dozen GINNs with no fatalities, everyone breathed an audible sigh of relief. Then another three mobilesuits appeared as if from nowhere, their Mirage Colloid dissipating. The forces of Jachin Due recoiled at at that. How many more foes could their be? They retreated back to Jachin Due, being even more surprised that they were not fired upon as they retreated.

"You stayed anyways?" Athrun asked Kira when he appeared on the view screen.

"Well, Flay was very insistent that she was going to catch up. And Cagalli and Mu decided that they should follow along." Kira could not blame the three, they all were very good friends, after all. "And Mu said it was a good test of Morgenroete's reverse-engineering of the Mirage Colloid technology. Now the Strikes and ASTRAYs all have Mirage Striker pack capability."

Andy whistled in admiration. "That is actually pretty scary."

Kira looked over to see Andy, happy to see the one time adversary. The woman at his side was even more surprising. "Aisha? I thought I had killed you on Earth. I-I'm glad I had not."

"We Coordinators are tough, Kira. Though I'm still not one hundred percent." She touched the left half of her face with a hand missing two fingers. "But I'm alive. And Andy seems to have this crazy thought that he doesn't care how many scars I have." She held up her right hand to show a ring. "The crazy fool even proposed to me."

Flay just smiled sadly at that banter.

That was when Mu came on the channel. "Pardon me, but could our poor mobilesuits be allowed to board? Flying a mobilesuit all the way back to our ships would not be fun at all."

* * *

Flay glared at Lacus, clutching her hands in front of her. She was just a ways off from Kira and Lacus, barely able to overhear the two as the singer let Kira know that her father had been captured and then killed as a traitor to the PLANTs. She could only empathize too much with the young Coordinator, having just lost her own father months earlier.

Kira then walked back to the Archangel with Flay. Uzumi Athha had summoned them immediately after they returned. The two looked surprised at the small meeting, where Cagalli and Miriallia were already located.

"I have requested that Freedom, Impact, Strike Rouge and ASTRAY-Strike be my escort into the Mendel Colony. I do not do this because I feel I need this much protection, but because it is the easiest way to get you four to accompany myself." The older man looked at his daughter, then Kira with intense solemnity.

Miriallia took a quick glance at Flay, then spoke. "So this has to do with the Neo-Coordinators also?"

"Very perceptive. Yes. It has to do with all of us... and your origins. Come."

So that was how the four mobilesuits entered the colony as the small shuttle flew towards a large building as Izumi directed. He led them deeper into the facility, until they arrived in a macabre chamber full of glass tubes large enough to hold a baby quite handily.

Flay took a step back as the lights showed there were floating, half-formed babies inside. "What is this place?"

"This is a place of the sin known as pride, conceit and a man who thought he could create a new race. Ulen Hibiki believed he could correct the fault in the Coordinator genome to allow them to breed true. He felt the fault was not just the genetics, but the mother's womb as it could not be perfect." Uzumi frowned deeply. "Dozens of failures over a span of years. And only a few viable successes. And finally, Kira Yamato as the only _known_ true success, manipulating the genes of his own son."

"This Ulen Hibiki was my father? And he was trying to make me some sort of super Coordinator?" Kira asked in a horrified voice, staring at the many artificial wombs.

"Yes. GARM Research and Development was more than just Hibiki's research though. Their were many people with many ideas to 'correct' the issue of the impending Coordinator inability to have children on their own. I believe that a researcher stole much from Hibiki, fleeing to Earth to set up fertility clinics." Uzumi could see all of them were horrified at what he was telling them. But they were adults now and needed to know.

"So Miriallia and I are also based on this 'Ultimate Coordinator' technique? But what does that mean?" Flay looked disconcerted.

"Only based on an early implementation of it. Your genes were set up with inhibitors that would degrades as your puberty ended. They must have felt that by growing up 'Natural' that you would have better empathy with the normal humans. That you would not feel superior to them by default of your genes from a very young age. This is conjecture, but the information that Miriallia Haw provided to Orb's geneticists seems to match this." Uzumi paused a second. "And I think that they are purposely misreporting the numbers of possible Neo-Coordinators. I believe there may be as many as twenty to thirty thousand of you all across the Earth."

Cagalli had been thinking hard. "And myself, father? You said all of our origins lay here? Yet I am no Coordinator!"

"You are correct, you are not. No, after Ulen Hibiki stole Kira from his wife's womb for his Ultimate Coordinator project finale, she decided that her daughter would be as 'normal' as possible. It was a tumultuous period for the Hibikis, even before Blue Cosmos attacked this facility to destroy the Coordinators that were being created here." Uzumi sat on the edge of the row of artificial wombs filled with dead babies. "You mother tried to flee with both of her children, but died before she could reach the safe haven of Heliopolis for herself. Via Hibiki will be always missed by her friends."

"I'm adopted?" Cagalli gasped out.

"Yes, but no less loved." Uzumi enfolded his daughter in a tight hug, holding her dearly. Finally after she pushed against him, he let her go. He reached into his pocket and removed a picture. "This is the only picture we have of your mother with you both."

Kira did not want to take the picture, as it would confirm to many horrors in his mind. Flay's hand crept into his own, squeezing him in reassurance. Cagalli had taken the picture and read the names on the back of it.

"I guess I have a brother. I've always been an only child and now... I'm a twin," Cagalli said with a mirthless smile.

"I'd like to have a sister, I think. Especially one that is as brave and headstrong as you are," Kira finally replied.

Uzumi led them back to the shuttle and their mobilesuits.

* * *

Mendel shook under the long range blast of a positron cannon. On the screen of the _Archangel_ there appeared something they did not believe possible, another Archangel class battle-cruiser. The two captains parlayed, but surrender was not an option for Murrue Ramius.

"Prepare for mobilesuit combat!" Murrue ordered. She gave very specific orders for the launch of the mobilesuits, then sent _Archangel_ into combat against the _Dominion_. The Impact was the last mobilesuit to launch just moments after the _Archangel _left Mendel Colony.

Freedom, Justice, Strike and Impact swept forward to meet Calamity, Forbidden and Raider with their complement of Strike Daggers from the _Dominion_. Murrue put a few ASTRAYs in the vanguard, but the battle was proving remarkably even.

Mu was showing the Biological CPUs just how much his mobilesuit piloting had improved, though it was Athrun in Justice that caused serious damage to Forbidden by reflecting his attack back on himself. When Mu sensed Rau La Creuset, he rocketed away from the battle to intercept the Coordinator.

"Follow him, Kira. Justice and I can deal with these two easily enough," Flay said as she set Impact to kick Raider away from them. "We'll send these guys packing in no time."

Athrun grinned at that, still in his SEED mode after having blocked Forbidden's main cannon. Freedom rocketed after Mu, more than balancing the two on one battle the Hawk of Endymion had found himself desperately overmatched in.

When the _Dominion _signalled retreat and the three GAT-X series suits were recovered, Murrue sprang her real plan into action. "Miriallia and Mackie, now!"

Floating right next to the _Dominion_, the ASTRAY-Strike dropped its Mirage Colloid just as it slammed its beam saber into a major sensor junction near the back of the _Dominion_, blinding its CiC. That was when Blitz appeared under the bridge tower, his own beam saber crippling the main sensor leads. Mackie then pointed his armor-penetrators right at the bridge window.

"Signal the _Dominion_ that we would be more than happy to accept their surrender now." Murrue looked very intent with a hard glint in her eye.

Natarle and Muruta stared in shock at the sudden turn-around in the fight. The leader of Blue Cosmos was thinking rapidly, but there really was no choice. Before he could order it, Natarle was speaking. "_Archangel_, we surrender. Powering down all weapons." She was clutching the control console with white knuckles. She was still sitting there when Orb soldiers took control of her bridge and escorted her to her own quarters under arrest, along with the 'real' leader of her ship to his own quarters.

"Kira?" Flay asked as she sent herself back towards the Mendel Colony where Kira had disappeared into, Miriallia following in the ASTRAY-Strike. She left her just within comminication range of Archangel as a stepping stone. She spotted the crashed Strike, a trashed GuAIZ and the Freedom down by the GARM building again. She had a bad feeling about this. "Flay to _Archangel._ It looks like Kira and Mu have left their mobilesuits and entered a building. They might need some backup, but I think I better wait until we can get someone to take control of the suits in the area."

"I'm relaying to _Archangel, _Flay!" Miriallia replied.

Flay was very antsy and almost jumped when Kira dragged Mu out the main door. It looked like both were wounded to one degree or another. "Kira!" She was out of Impact's cockpit and dropping her line down to the ground almost instantly. "You idiots. How did you guys manage to get yourself shot?" She practically dragged both of them back to the mobilesuits just as the shuttle from the _Kusanagi_ landed along with Miriallia in the ASTRAY-Strike.

"It was Rau La Creuset." Kira grinned tightly. "I guess he was going to shock me with revelations about-" He paused a second as he glanced over at the approaching Orb soldiers. "Our genetic heritage, trying to tell me I was some sort of monster."

"So I don't have a monopoly on that anymore?" she retorted with a familia tone of bitter, self-loathing venom.

"Of course. You taught me that you aren't a monster, but a young woman that desperately wants to be loved. I don't want to ever hear you speak of that again. Because of you, I laughed in his face. He's a monster not because of his genes, but because of his actions." Kira seemed very determined as he cut Mu's flight suit away to start putting a pressure bandage.

"Yeowch. A little softer there. Yeah, La Crueset tried to pull that on me too. The guy's crazy. Though I came out of this encounter a lot worse than I did our little gun fight a JOSH-A." Mu grimaced in pain as the anticoagulants and anethsethetics of the bandage kicked in.

Just an hour or so later, they were back onboard the _Archangel_, just as ZAFT sent three cruisers to attack. La Creuset, after escaping Mendel using an life-pod, was sure the _Eternal _was there, but he was more interested in delivering a package to the Earth Alliance. A life pod was released towards the center area between the two ships after the ZAFT commander let them know he was releasing a 'prisoner of war'.

He laughed as he launched his mobilesuits and his old CGUE under the pretext to keep the Earth Alliance from 'capturing' the Freedom and Justice. The crew did not even argue when he launched the escape pod with a young Natural girl he'd picked up at JOSH-A and had been grooming just for this plan. He was not sure how well the girl _really_ knew Mu La Flaga, but a damsel in distress should bring out the 'knights' to protect her.

The young girl's scream on the open radio channel galvanized Kira to quickly swoop in on her, just as Rau had planned.

Suddenly, the _Archangel _and the _Dominion _swerved to be side-by-side instead of seemingly facing off with each other, lauching a blistering attack against the _Vesalius_. The _Kusanagi _and the _Izumo _led the way for the _Eternal, _launching their own attacks in support as they came out of the abandoned colony's dock.

"What?" La Creuset was very surprised. Why were all these ships here and working together now? Had he misjudged the situation? "Fall back! We can't stand against this many ships!"

"All ships, bracket the center Nazca-class cruiser! If we destroy it, the rest of the ships will retreat in the face of our power," Lacus ordered, even as the _Eternal _fired everything it could.

The _Vesalius _exploded before they could even close, causing Athrun to salute his old ship. On the _Archangel,_ Yzak beat his fist against the armored port window as he saw the ship go up in a ball of explosions. "Damn them. Damn them all!"

The two remaining Nazca-class cruisers quickly split up, trying to put as much distance between them and the enemies.

"Let them go," the singer said softly. "We don't need to kill anyone else today. There has been enough death."

Murrue could only nod her head on the bridge of her own ship.

* * *

The life-pod opened on the flight deck, admitting a woman wearing a ZAFT uniform to the mixed crew of the Archangel. She had short brown hair and looked very nervous. "Ah!" she said, seeing a sea of unknown faces. "I have something for you. He said it would be a key to ending the war." She held up a data disk.

"Who are you?" Murrue asked.

"Petty Officer Lisa Jones recently of JOSH-A!" she replied, snapping a salute. "I was captured by ZAFT during that fight. Commander La Creuset took me with him for some reason. He seemed really interested in Lt. La Flaga." She snapped out a very quick Earth Alliance salute. "Lieutenant!" she said as she finally spotted Mu, feeling much better at recognizing the officer she had served under in the 7th Fleet.

"Interesting. Let's see what he wanted to give the Earth Alliance." Mu had a very serious look on his face. It had only been hours since his own encounter with the madman.

Kira took the data disk and inserted it into one of the computer in the landing bay that he used on the Strike, recognizing the data immediately. "This is the full Freedom and Justice specifications. Including the N-Jammer Canceller."

Flay's eyes widened at that implication. "Why would Rau La Creuset give the Earth Alliance this technology? He has to know that they would have a very large advantage with access to fission power again." Wait. "La Creuest captured her at JOSH-A?"

"Yes, we ran into each other just as he discovered the Cyclops system there." Mu frowned. Something about that seemed wrong.

Miriallia suddenly clenched her fist as she remembered back to that battle. "He was a ZAFT commander at that battle and knew of the Cyclops? Why didn't he warn his men to retreat? Mu made it back in time to get into the ASTRAY-Strike and defend the Archangel as it retreated."

Mu snapped his fingers as it finally dawned on him. "He wasn't there to discover the Cyclops and warn his men. He was discovering why the Earth Alliance wasn't really defending JOSH-A as hard as it could have."

"Are you accusing Commander La Creuset of leading all those soldiers to their death? That he is some sort of traitor to our homeland?" Yzak shouted, his eyes wild in anger. Mackie Denzen put his hand on Yzak's shoulder, which the silver-haired pilot angrily shrugged off.

Kira turned to look at Yzak. "Do you have a better explanation of why he was trying to give the Earth Alliance N-Jammer Cancellers? And failed to warn _anyone_ at JOSH-A to retreat, even though he knew of the Cyclops system? Open your eyes! The man is an insane monster that believes that he should lead humanity to its death. He might have even leaked the true target of Operation Spit Break, giving the Earth Alliance enough time to plan their trap. We know that Seigel Clyne didn't, as he didn't even _know_ what was the true target."

"I-I don't. But that just can't be true. He's fought brilliantly for ZAFT this whole time." Yzak was almost shouting. His fists and shoulders were trembling in anger.

"Captain? What would the Earth Alliance do with this technology?" Miriallia asked Murrue.

The older woman frowned in thought. "I'm afraid I don't know. They might just stop the energy crisis, but they may also escalate with nuclear weapons."

Flay suddenly got a gleam in her eye as she grinned nastily. "We may have a way to find out."

* * *

"I can't believe you would work with the leader of Blue Cosmos, Natarle! I thought I knew you better than that!" Murrue shouted as she slammed her hands down on the captain's desk. "He's been espousing murdering every Coordinator that exists, even ones like Kira that were living peaceful lives in neutral nations."

"He was assigned to the Dominion by the Earth Alliance Headquarters. Unlike some people, I can follow orders, _'Captain,'"_ she snarled right back.

"Do you ever have trouble looking into your mirror in the morning? You sicken me." Murrue stood up, snatching her palm computer and marched out the door. "Make sure she is treated _properly_ as befitting a captain of the Earth Alliance." She almost snarled that to the guards outside Natarle's office.

Natarle slammed her fist on the desk. Damn that woman and her idealistic ways. This was a war of survival. She scrubbed her hair with her free hand. She set about reorganizing her desk yet again and tidying up her office. So when she found an unknown data pad, she was curious. Not having any paperwork to run her ship anymore, she unfortunately had far too much free time.

She was startled at what she found on it. It looked like Murrue's normally cluttured work disks, but she had some information that had been given by a ZAFT traitor. After looking through the specifications, Natarle found the N-Jammer Canceller information.

This was critically important information that she _had_ to get back to the Earth Alliance. She was still going over the information when the door opened, admitting Muruta Azreal to strut into _her_ office. "Ah, Captain. At least our captors have decided to be civilized about this whole mess we ended up in."

"Yes, sir. This... may be very important, sir. After our last discussion, Murrue Ramius left her work disk here. It had fallen off my desk. It has the full specifications on those mobilesuits we faced. Codenamed: Freedom and Justice." Natarle clenched her fist, then jumped into it. "They are fission powered, outfitted with a device called a N-Jammer _Canceller._"

"What? A device to cancel the blasted N-Jammers?" Muruta was almost beside himself in glee as he slid around to look at the information. It seemed real. Too real. "And this disk was just left here?" he asked suspciously.

"Actually, it was her full backup disk. It's got all of her paperwork on a single disk." Natarle paused a moment in indecision. "She's always been a little uncoordinated with her paperwork."

Muruta took the disk from the computer and started laughing. "Oh, yes. Yes! This is wonderful. We just need to get this and myself back to the Earth Alliance. We'll be able to destroy all those monsters finally!"

"Sir?" Her voice betrayed shock and betrayal. She had thought of the N-Jammer Canceller being used to free Earth from its energy crisis.

"We'll destroy every one of those damned hour glasses!" Muruta started laughing maniacally.

"But-"

He suddenly slammed his palm onto her desk. "Captain Badguriel, this is the way it should be. Once the Coordinators have been expunged from existence, humanity can go back to peace. There will only be peace once _all _of those damned space monsters are destroyed."

Natarle looked away, feeling ashamed of herself. Muruta made a copy of the disk and handed it to her. He then headed towards the door with a smirk... that dropped at the sight of Murrue and Mu with six soldiers all pointing their weapons at him.

"Well, I guess that answers what the Earth Alliance would want to do with N-Jammer Canceller technology," Murrue said with a harsh frown on her lips. "I'll take that disk now. Guards, escort Secretary Azreal to the brig." She then stepped into captain's office and closed the door behind her. "Natarle, if I could have your copy?"

Her old XO handed over the disk. "I thought it was a little convienent, but I can see why you wanted to know his reaction."

"He would just escalate this conflict, Natarle. We need to step away from the brink of this genocidal disaster." Murrue was walking back to the door when Natarle suddenly spoke.

"Some days... I can't look myself in the eyes in my mirror."

Over her shoulder, Murrue nodded. "I could not imagine you destroying colonies full of civilians. Perhaps you should make a choice to stand against Blue Cosmos."

The door opened and then closed, leaving the dark-haired woman to her private thoughts.

* * *

The plans for Genesis were working along. In just another month, it would go operational for defensive purposes. Rau La Creuset smiled at that thought. Only a fool thought a weapon that could shoot bases on the Moon as a 'defensive' weapon. He stepped into the office of Chairman Zala.

"Commander Creuset. This war is dragging down with the introduction of the Earth Alliance's mass produced mobilesuits. And Gunginar was only of limited affect on our last battle." Patrick Zala was starting to look a lot older. "We have lost much since JOSH-A, which should have been the centerpiece of our victorious march."

"Chairman Zala! A rogue broadcast from Lacus Clyne!" an aide yelled out as he entered the room with a crash, slamming the door wide.

"I have nothing to listen to from that traitor." The Chairman looked ready to demote the offending ZAFT enlisted aide to the farthest and worst assignment on Earth. At the aides worried, but resolute look, he relented for just a moment. "Fine. Send it to the screen." He slumped to his seat as the aide started the broadcast for Chairman Zala, then took position behind his leader.

On the screen, a determined Lacus Clyne appeared. No longer just the singer of peace, she spoke as a statesman and leader. "My name is Lacus Clyne, accused of aiding in the theft of military secrets to the enemies of PLANT. At this time, I publicly declare that this is a lie. Freedom and Justice were taken to keep their power out of the hands of Chairman Zala and his supporters because of their illegal construction. The _Eternal _was taken because Chairman Zala will not continence a public trial where secrets that he wishes to hide would become public, so my followers and I had to flee for our lives."

Zala shouted inarticulately as he smashed his fists onto his huge desk. "How dare she!?"

"But today is not of my supposed guilt, but of a much greater traitor to our homeland. A man trusted for his bravery and victory in PLANT's war against the Earth Alliance. A man who we believe helped murder almost half of our soldiers on Earth." Lacus's eyes seemed to stare into La Creuset's masked visage, suddenly causing him worry. "My faction has been in contact with renegade Alliance officers that were betrayed by their own high command and left to be killed by the Cyclops at JOSH-A. One of those officers, Lt. Commander Mu La Flaga, personally saw and was in a gun battle with Commander Rau La Creuset as our ZAFT commander discovered that the base was soon to be destroyed by that Cyclops system. Lt. Commander La Flage returned to the his home ship and urged them to retreat."

Chairman Zala was suddenly looking at La Creuset with narrowed eyes.

"Commander La Creuset gave no such warning; no order to retreat to the ZAFT forces currently engaged against the Eurasion Federation forces that were defending JOSH-A, though he managed to escape himself." Lacus stood up from behind the desk she was being filmed behind. "My father was accused of leaking that information to the Earth Alliance so that they could evacuate the base and build that monstrous machine of destruction. That, my fellow citizens of PLANT, is an impossibility. My father was unaware of the true target of Operation Spit Break until it was announced that it was against JOSH-A seventy-two hours before the operation. Chairman Zala had withheld all information of Spit Break's true target from all members of the PLANT Supreme Council. He was outraged that the target he had been told for weeks earlier had been a lie."

La Creuset was almost snarling in anger at this point. This harlot was going to destroy all of his hard earned work with mere words. He failed to see Chairman Zala's fists clench so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"What may have not occurred to most of you is that a Cyclop system takes weeks, if not months, to assemble. Not the seventy-two hours that my father was aware of its true target. Our soldiers of ZAFT died to take an abandoned base that was nothing more than a deadly trap. I can not lay the blame of that intelligence leak to La Creuest, but I have a strong suspicion that he was behind it." She looked into the camera intently. "But that is not the most damning thing La Creuset has done. Only a month ago, he attempted to give the secrets of Freedom and Justice directly to the Earth Alliance. Luckily for PLANT, he did not realize that the two ships he approached belonged to officers that no longer followed the Earth Alliance. His use of an Earth Alliance prisoner of war to ferry that information failed. And we can be thankful for that, for La Creuset is more than a traitor."

Chairman Zala surged to his feet a he pulled out his pistol. "How dare you?"

La Creuset had his own pistol at the ready, but was worried to note that the aide that he had deemed a worthless threat already had his own pistol out too. "This world must burn!"

On the screen, Lacus continued to speak. "He is an insane megalomaniac that wishes to fan the flames of war with Earth by giving them access to the technology that cancels our N-Jammers. Rau La Creuset was attempting to give the Earth Alliance their nuclear weapons back in a bid to escalate this insane war."

The doors slammed open as ZAFT green-coats filled the entryways, blocking La Creuset's escape.

He was laughing hideously as the guards dragged him away, leaving the leader of ZAFT and PLANT behind him stunned. On the screen behind him, Lacus continued her impassioned speech of sanity amidst the war.

* * *

"They've got a 60mm heisenberger coil!" Flay said, poking through a pile of components on the Junk Guild's ship. "Now all I need is a 48mm deutronium flow control module."

Kira sighed. Ever since Flay had found out that Freedom and Justice ran on fission power and essentially could not run out of power, she had been obsessively looking to upgrade her Impact. "Flay, you know that they aren't going to have one of those. Especially not one that is that small."

"Found it!" Lowe called out from another pile. The technician sniffed at the large package, quickly running his portable geiger counter over it. "Must have been a spare from before the Bloody Valentine. "Hmm. It's actually a 55mm. Is that small enough?"

That was just _barely_ within the size limit. Kira let his shoulders slump. Now she was going to pester the ground crew on the _Eternal_ until they built her a fission engine with a N-Jammer Canceller. "Why do you have something like that here?"

"Inventory says that it was used as part of a private ship's emergency power. Everyone has to use heavily shielded fission engines or power packs now, though." Lowe was giving Kira and Flay a very odd look. "Fission power is almost useless these days. Too many N-Jammers around."

"You're fishing again, Lowe." Flay waggled a finger at him Kira walked over. "But since it's useless, you'll give us a really good deal, right?"

"These things are still regulated by the International Nuclear Regulatory Commission! I could get in big trouble just giving that to you!" The Junk Guilder had his rebuttal well planned.

"Hah! I saw you pass your geiger counter over that. It's stone cold, isn't it? And it's not like it has any fissionables in it!" Flay was almost acting giddy as she started to haggle with the salvage dealer.

"He's always like that," a battered metal box with an '8' on it. Lowe has set the A.I. down while he rumaged in the piles.

Lowe and Flay finally came to an agreement, loading a pallet with the equipment that she had found and dragged it down to HOME's docking bay, where a battered shuttle that their fleet was using to ferry parts from the Junk Guild.

"Kira! Don't look!" Flay cried out. She cringed as Kira, of course, immediately did look.

He quickly looked away from the scantily clad woman who was only wearing a thong and a barely tied bathrobe that almost covered her impressive assets. "Ack!"

"Professor! We have guests!" Lowe called out.

"Of course we do! I've been having the most fascinating conversation with Representative Athha. He's wanting to see how many mobilesuit spare parts we can scrounge up!" the genius said with a happy smile, sliding her glasses back up her nose a bit.

Lowe looked over at his Red Frame ASTRAY for a worried second. "Er, he's not upset about the Red Frame, is he?"

Uzumi waved that off. "While Orb would like to recover our mobilesuit, we recognize that you are the owner of Red Frame right now. Unfortunately, I don't think you would agree to sell that for what we would consider a reasonable price."

"Well, not many people could actually use it without 8." The Junk Guilder just shrugged his shoulders as he patted the computer box he had slung over his shoulder.

"Oh, you don't have a copy of the Natural MOS yet?" Flay asked as she walked back from the pile of parts that was getting ready to be loaded onto the shuttle. Kisaki, in a civilian flight uniform just nodded.

"Nah, I'm okay with having to use 8." He had a shit-eating grin about that.

Kira nodded. "I'd love to see how he's set up. He's a very realistic A.I. And more versatile than I've heard of in state of the art technologies."

Kisaki suddenly stuck his head out of the crew hatch near the front. "We've got an incoming force. Looks like several GINNs and a GuAIZ."

"Sounds like ZAFT has tracked us down. This is our battle, so we better get out of here before they decide to attack you too." Uzumi hurried to the cockpit while Flay and Kira quickly loaded the equipment they had purchased.

The shuttle launched, leave the Junkyard and made a quick dog-leg to put the bulk of HOME between them and the rapidly approaching ZAFT mobilesuits. Uzumi had them head towards the waiting _Dominion_, sending them a warning of the approaching ZAFT mobilesuits.

"Why haven't those mobilesuits caught up already? They should have been able to catch us before we got out of range." Kira looked worried.

"You think they are _trying_ to follow us back to our home ship?" Flay was just finishing strapping in.

"This is a trap. Damn, we've been using the same basic plan each time we leave a meeting. So they guessed the direction. Warn the _Dominion_, they are probably going to be attacked from behind!" Kira yelled out, surprising Kisaki and Uzumi at the front of the cockpit.

Unfortunately, Kira was too late. A Nazca-class cruiser rounded a large piece of wreckage using a cable to change its vector, running silent and cold to show up almost directly behind the _Dominion_. It's white-jacketed commander yelled out, "Fire!" Captain Gladys narrowed her eyes as the attack shot out.

Luckily, the _Dominion _had been scrambling to level one battlestations, so its laminated armor took the brunt of the attack. Captain Romero Pal yelled for evasive manuevers and to launch mobilesuits. Both catapults opened and the ready pilots launched Raider and Forbidden with their new pilots.

Asagi Caldwell and Miriallia Haw had only a split second warning that something was wrong before two GuAIZ opened fire on the mobilesuits at the very end of the catapults. The two machines had faded in from Mirage Colloid invisibility. The Raider came apart as the beam blasts hammered into its torso and head, exploding in a fireball.

"Asagi!?" Miriallia yelled out as she reflexively brought Forbidden's two shields up to deflect the beam attack into the side of the catapult. "Raider is destroyed!"

Romero slammed his fist into the hand rest. Now he knew what it felt like to be in Murrue's seat. "Evade ten degrees to port, five degrees up!" The _Dominion _had barely changed directions quickly enough as the Nazca and a third GuAIZ missed as it appeared from its own Mirage Colloid. "Ready Calamity and Stike Dagger for immediate deployment. Clear the front arc with flack."

In the Nazca-class Cruiser, the _Rio Grande_, a red-jacketed pilot frowned. He was sitting in a mobilesuit cockpit, awaiting deployment. "Captain Gladys, it appears we've failed to disable that enemy ship."

On the bridge, she nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately correct, but I want to hold you and your mobilesuit as a trump card. Please hold until I call for you."

"Yes, sir."

"Hang on!" Kisaki called out as he sent the shuttle towards the open landing bay of the _Dominion_.

The ship was definitely starting to hold its own as Forbidden cleaved one of the GuAIZ-MCs as it appeared from invisibility with its scythe. Calamity and Strike Daggers were fighting for all they were worth.

The shuttle slammed into the landing pad with a shower of sparks even as its reverse thrusters blared. It barely came to a halt before the last bulkhead. The hatch popped open and Kira and Flay were out in a flash, heading towards Freedom and Impact respectively.

"Kira Yamato in Freedom, launching!" the pilot yelled out. He had already activated his phase shift armor and had his beam rifle on a hair trigger as he launched out the right side.

The Impact slid into position on the same catapult, as the shuttle was still in the way on the other side. "Flay Allster in Impact, launching!" She too was on a hair trigger, dodging left immediately to avoid a GuAIZ-MC that tried to gun her down as she was launched. "Not today!"

"Captain! We have confirmation that Freedom just launched!" the mobilesuit controller called out.

"Launch Providence! Open a channel." Gladys waited until the channel was opened. "Freedom, you are hereby ordered to surrender your stolen unit. If you surrender, we promise a fair trail under the auspices of the PLANT Supreme Council! Failure to comply will be met with deadly force!"

That was when the new mobilesuit launched from the _Rio Grande_, blazing a path towards the Dominion. Two Strike Daggers moved to intercept it, but the powerful machine swept through their space destroying one outright with his beam saber while the second one exploded as half of its remote weapons blasted it with beams.

"I won't let you hurt the people I'm sworn to defend!" Kira yelled out, the Freedom moving to block its access. The two Gundams slammed their beam sabers together.

"That won't work on me!" Anthony Banner said as he grinned, directing four of his dragoons to attack.

Romero had just a moment of warning before he and his bridge were blasted into the void of space.

"Remote beam weapons? Crap! He just took out the _Dominion! _Watch your sixes, he can attack you from behind!" Flay shouted out. Her Impact's double vernier system sent her spinning sharply away while she fired at the dark gray mobilesuit... which he blocked adroitly with his beam resistant shield.

"Fire Gottfrieds and Hammers!" a female voice ordered from the _Dominion_ as the Archangel-class cruiser suddenly swerved expertly, rather than floundering out of control.

Anthony snarled as the _Dominion_ then fired a barrage of flack just as he released half of his dragoons. Unlike the Providence, they could not be shielded with phase-shift. He recovered the single, surviving remote weapon. "Captain Gladys, we aren't making any progress here and the others are taking a beating." He still had the other half of the weapons, but at this rate he would be mostly disarmed in the next ten minutes.

Gladys agreed wholeheartedly, launching flares to signal retreat. "Get us moving back. We wounded that ship enough that it won't chase us."

"I would have had Freedom if it wasn't for you," the red-jacketed pilot complained. "I'll make sure you aren't around next time to stop me." With a thought, he triggered all of his remaining dragoons even as he kept firing with his main rifle.

Flay was evading fine with her Typhoon's thrusters, until the pack itself took a hit, suddenly dropping her manueverability by fifty percent. She screamed in rage-anguish, certain she was going to die when Freedom interposed itself to take several hits.

"I won't let you die!" Kira raged aloud. The Freedom shook under the attack as bits were blown off, but the dragoons were depleted.

Miriallia shouted, "Retreat you two! We'll cover you!" Forbidden fired all weapons, vaporizing a retreating GuAIZ-MC before it could disappear. And like that, the battle was over.

Freedom and Impact made it back to the _Dominion_, both shattered and in dire need of repair. It seemed some new players were in the game.

* * *

Uzumi frowned as he entered the CiC of the _Dominion_. "Captain Natarle." He and most of the rest of the crew had been surprised when the Earth Alliance officer had taken charge of the situation during the battle against the _Rio Grande_. Her request afterwards for an Orb Union uniform had been even more surprising, although everyone could see the effort and emotional toil it had taken to ask.

She saluted even as she continued to run the ship. "Hail the _Archangel _and _Izumo_."

"Captain Badgiruel?" Murrue asked through the communicator. "What happened to Captain Pal?"

"He and the bridge crew were killed in action against a Nazca-class cruiser that was hunting for Freedom. So we're a bit damaged here and need some serious work to be fully functional."

"Understood." Murrue's wince could almost be heard through the voice communication. "Is Representative Athha there?"

"I'm right here, Captain." Uzumi raised an eyebrow at that.

"I have a communication that we received from a Nelson-class ship, the _Brittanica_, for your eyes only."

"Hmm. Perhaps we are finally getting a nibble. Captain Ramius, how is that project coming along?" The leader of Orb had a determined look within his eyes.

"We should be able to deploy the Umbrella Pylon System within two weeks." Murrue was still uncertain of the concept, but it seemed the best way to implement peaceful uses of the N-Jammer Canceller technology.

* * *

"Sheesh, this new mobilesuit knocked both of them out of commission?" Yzak exclaimed loudly the next day as techs worked on repairing them. He had seen the Freedom and Impact in action. They were definitely a step up from his own Duel. So what did that make this other ZAFT mobilesuit?

Flay just glared at the silver-haired pilot. "If it wasn't for Kira, I'd probably be dead."

"I didn't say you wouldn't," Yzak said mildly as she glared at him.

That was when a Clyne faction ZAFT soldier ran into the repair bay of the Eternal. "Did you hear? The Eurasian Federation is declaring a cease-fire with the PLANTs!"

"What?" they yelled. Kira, Flay, Yzak and Mackie all ran to the bridge to hear it directly.

Lacus and Athrun were already there, listening to the news commentor talk over the unexpected announcement. He also announced a high level summit between the Eurasian Parliment Ambassadors and Lord Uzumi Athha.

"It looks like Lord Uzumi's plan might be starting to work," Lacus finally said. Waltfield and Athrun nodded.

"Maybe I'm only a mobilesuit pilot, but what plan?" Flay asked queriously.

"To force all of the parties back to the negotiaion table. Now that we have Nuclear Jammer Canceller technology, Athha approached the _civilian_ leaders of the Eurasian Federation with helping them overcome their power shortages problems. And while a lot of Naturals are upset at the PLANTs for causing the power shortages, they are _more_ interested in restoring civilian power to the masses." Lacus smiled. "And Athha did not demand that they surrender, just a temporary ceasefire."

"They were willing to talk?" Kira asked in surprise.

Athrun gave him a hard grin. "It seems they weren't too thrilled to find out that they were hung out to dry by the Atlantic Federation at JOSH-A."

* * *

"Captain on deck!" bawled out the marine as Captain William Lorans walked onto the bridge of the Atlantic Federation super-carrier; _Montana_.

"As you were." The captain looked out over his fleet as they steamed towars the approaching coast. "Keep on your toes, I doubt they will attack us but these men are desperate."

"Attack us? They would have to be insane. Especially with our load of Strike Daggers!" his XO, Lt. Commander Jules Harris, exclaimed a bit too loudly.

That was when the United States of South America launched their cruise missiles at long range at the carrier fleet. Piercing alarms shrieked on the bridge as the missiles streaked in.

"Launch SAMs, prep for the leakers with CWIS. Someone track those missiles back to their source!" Loran shouted out.

As the missile attack continued, stealthy forms let go of their towing tethers from trained dolphins. Commandos started to scale the hull of the escorted freighters with magnetic clamps. As soon as they made it to the deck, they moved over to cloth covered forms of mobilesuits.

Five minutes later, the alarm went up as the first Strike Dagger stood up. Ropes snapped as sailors screamed out a warning.

"Freedom from Tyranny!" shouted the first mobilesuit pilot of the USSA across the open channel. He started firing his beam rifle into the nearest destroyer.

"Tell me they didn't steal my Strike Daggers?" Captain Loran asked his XO. "I doubled the guards on those freighters." Someone was going to be losing their stripes over this matter, he swore to himself internally.

* * *

Workers toiled near the Schwinburg Number Two Power Plant outside Berlin. The thin, white tower was marked with the Orb national flag as workers assembled the device under the watchful eyes of white-suited Orb soldiers.

This device had been a clever idea of Uzumi Athha of leasing N-Jammer Canceller technology without revealing how it actually worked. The tower would negate the N-Jammer effect, but could be destroyed or removed if the Eurasian Federation failed to pay for the services.

The cost was barely profitable, essentially giving it away. But the Eurasian Federation (and soon the Republic of Eastern Asia) were starting to see a direct impact on their economies already as energy prices started to drop and civilian transportation started to pick up to pre-war levels.

"Turn it on, Himmler!" shouted the Orb technician on the gantry.

The plant supervisor hit the portable computer's 'enter' button, activating the N-Jammer Canceller. Deep in the bowels of Plant Number Two, the flow of neutron started rising as graphite rods were carefully withdrawn.

It would be a long process, but they would soon be pumping out electricity to the thirsty masses.

* * *

"Go home, go home!" chanted the masses outside the airbase. One dark-haired boy with red eyes threw a rock at the car, almost getting it into the door.

Colonel Barty Miller grimaced as garbage and rotting fruit started to rain down on his car in earnest. "Damn it, Davidson. Can't we do anything about these guys?"

"Not unless you want to start arresting everyone. Especially with our under-strength brigade we've got now. This is turning into a cluster-fuck, sir." Captain Gary Davidson was an experienced maverick, and this 'occupation' was turning ugly quick.

Who would have though that these people of 'non-interference' and 'neutrality' would grow a backbone.

"Can't the Seirans keep control of these people? I though you said they could?" Miller asked.

"They aren't as well respected as Uzumi Athhas, sir. So every time that bastard shoves another peace initiative on us in space, we get another demonstration. And it's getting worse." Davidson thought it over for a long time, then decided that Miller needed to know this fact. "You know that this island was a major battle during World War II?"

"Most of the Pacific was, soldier," the colonel said in an aggrieved tone.

"Well, we _might_ have done too good of a job riddling these islands full of bunkers and subterranean forts. That ass Johnson got him and his men shot up after 'suppressing' that demonstration at the market. We thought we had confiscated all of their weapons. One of the people we arrested later let it slip that they had _made_ more weapons later. And that Orb's fleet was still out there, just beyond detection range."

"So you are saying that if we start suppressing them like we did in South America, that this whole country is going to explode in our faces?"

Davidson nodded as the car turned off the main road from the airport and into the central part of the city.

"I'm going to have to ask for reinforcements," Miller finally said. Not something he could say easily.

"I'm sure they'll just divert some of the troops headed to South America or Kyoshung. Nothing critical going on at those locations," came the sarcastic barb back.

And damn if Davidson wasn't right about that. His chances of getting real reinforcements was rapidly vanishing.

* * *

"Brother, this is becoming bothersome," Mina Sahaka said as she tapped her folded fan on the table across from Ghina Sahaka.

Her 'older' twin brother, one step removed barely from a clone really, nodded. "Uzumi Athha's reforms are playing havoc with our plans." Ghina snarled silently and then slammed his fist. "Why won't the old man just die?"

"He is just a natural." Mina stopped as she considered the thought. "And he's old. He'll die soon."

"And then we can bring Pax Sahaka upon the entire world." The male twin had an almost maniacal glint.

The female twin looked off and out into space through the armored view port of their family's space station; _Ame-no-Mihashira_. Mina did not want to admit it, but Ghina was starting to lose it. He actually felt that his Gold Frame was the superior to any existing mobilesuit.

It lacked phase-shift, the extended batteries or the advanced energy weapons of even other Orb mobilesuits. Much less trans-phase and nuclear power. Ghina had not even managed to destroy either of the other prototype frames. Lowe and Gui were both still quite alive.

Was her brother... insane? But their genetic modification they both underwent should have made that impossible. Perhaps she should see about having her modifications rechecked.

Mina listened to her brother rant and rave as she rubbed her cheek with one gloved finger. Luckily, Orb was still technically 'neutral' with the PLANTs.

She would have to convince her brother to let her travel to the PLANTs.

* * *

Patrick Zala slammed his hand on the table. "Damn you! You are ruining the opportunity to destroy the Earth Alliance!"

The diminished supreme council was meeting again, now that the Zala faction had lost a great deal of support. Eileen Canaver led a much less hawkish council, much to Patrick's continual vexation.

"Don't you mean kill all those Naturals with weapons of mass destruction?" Eric Usher asked snidely.

"Eric, please. Bringing that up does not help us with the current crisis," the new Supreme Chairwoman said in a tired voice. "Genesis will be completed, but the guidelines for its use have already been laid out. It is only to ever be used as an anti-fleet weapon and not target anything that could be construed as civilian." She turned to look at Patrick closely. "That includes any targets upon the Earth. Rau Le Creuset's madness will not cause us to destroy everyone like that madman wished."

Patrick scowled. He would never admit it, but he had changed... slightly, from the grief struck madman that the clone had been manipulating into destroying the Naturals. "I agree that the Vanguard protocols will stay in effect. But more ZAFT soldiers are going to die if we don't end this war!"

"But we are attempting to end this war. Defeating the enemy utterly is not the only solution, Patrick," Eileen said clearly. "We are not just willfully disarming ourselves, but this has been the best opportunity for a real peace in years."

"That's only because Uzumi has the Earth Alliance civilian politicians by the short hairs," Athrun's father disparaged.

"It has been fun watching them have to carefully balance their actions now that civilian support for the war has started dropping," Maria Felton said with a hard grin. She was another new member of the council.

Eric frowned. "Orb can't be in it just for the peace process though. No one is that altruistic."

"I believe that he's looking to a mutually beneficial agreement to hammer out repatriation after the war. And he's very convincing," she noted. That cagey noble might actually be able to make the Atlantic Federation _and_ the PLANTs pay for the different attacks on Orb. She was not looking forward to having Orb inherit the Atlantic Federation's claim to the debts owed for building some of the PLANTs, but had to admit that losing Heliopolis and the attack on their homeland did incur a debt there on both sides.

And the phrasing of 'not being absentee landlords but partners' that would not discriminate based on genetics was appealing. There was a lot of potential for the future there.

* * *

Miriallia floated up a corner of the hanger deck to see three Coordinators working on a mobilesuit. Yzak and Mackie just laughed at the other's comment.

It was him that she was here about. The one that killed Tolle. Miriallia floated over to a shadowed nook. At Dearka's grimace of pain, she felt a momentary stab of glee that she smothered in guilt. Careful questioning of Yzak and Athrun had garnered her information that Dearka was no blood-thirsty savage.

No matter how much she wished he were a jerk like Yzak. She looked across the hanger deck of the Dominion where her Calamity was being refitted. Should she have let Captain Murrue Ramius push her into learning to pilot the GAT-X mobilesuit?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Dearka asked in a controlled manner.

"I was just thinking about a friend that was killed in _your _last battle. He was the pilot of the SkyGrasper you shot down."

"Damn near killed me, too. That was a smart move by you guys to shoot right through that hill," he said with a grimace. "Not much use for a one-armed mobilesuit pilot."

"At least you're alive," she said bitterly.

Dearka opened his mouth but stopped himself. He clenched his one fist angrily, then slumped his shoulders. "I wish I could bring back your friend. He sounds like a good kid."

Miriallia had no answer as she pushed off to leave the deck. A very small, repressed part hoped that she was killed, just like Tolle.

* * *

Lord Djibril floated down to the ground in the light, lunar gravity. "Captain Lars. How is the rearmament going?"

"We should have most Nelson-class battleships and Agamemnon-class carriers refitted with particle weapons and mobilesuit operations done in another three weeks. We'll only have about fifty percent of the Drake-class escorts done though."

"And where does that leave us in space?"

"Near parity, finally. We lost a lot of good men to hold them back while we developed our own mobilesuits," Lars said. "I wish we could get those N-Jammer Cancellers. We could finish the war a lot faster that way." It went without saying that the Earth Alliance (and the Atlantic Federation in particular) had a lot more nuclear weapons than the PLANTs.

Djibril merely smiled. "Well, as the vernacular goes, there's always two ways to skin a cat. And I think I have solution. It's not nearly as quick and deadly, but my scientists say that the mixing of nerve gas and a specific nanite designed to eat through the seals in most ZAFT and PLANT construction should be an unpleasant surprise. To them, anyways."

Lars quietly did not voice any objections. Even by bringing it up by a round about thought such as public displeasure. "Of course, sir."

"Any luck at stealing the N-Jammer Canceller technology from the Eurasians?" the lord asked as they walked along the row of gleaming Strike Daggers towards the headquarters of the base.

"No, sir. It appears each device is fitted with a self-destruct mechanism. According to our agents, each one is different and ingenious. I'm sure we'll get it. Once something is proven to be doable, we'll do it. But not in the next six months." Captain Lars opened the door into the heart of Arzachel Lunar Base command center.

"Gentlemen, it's time to start planning the downfall of PLANTs and those damned Coordinators. Then we can start to seriously purge the Earth of the Neo-Coordinator blight and return purity to our world." Djibril saw all of them straighten up a bit, looking more serious. "And I want to see this done by the end of the year."

"I understand we have a new batch of Biologic CPUs," Admiral Danvers asked, turning to Captain Lars.

"Not... quite." He narrowed his eyes as he saw a smirk apear on Djibril. "We have identified two people in our current schedule for Extension that are Neo-Coordinators."

"How extensive is their brainwashing?" Danvers asked. The loss of Flay Allster was a mark on his record he did not want to see repeated.

"Very. As far as they are concerned, they are merely Class III Biologic CPUs. I would suggest we divert a Sword Calamity and the Blast Impact for operations against Uzumi's forces." Lars had a grim smile at that pronouncement.

"And that brings us up to our first stumbling block. We need to disrupt this peace conference of Uzumi and Canaver." Djibril started tapping his finger on the huge conference table. "Have we learned where the conference is going to be?"

"Security has been tight, but we think it will be in space." Admiral Danvers pulled out a folder from his briefcase. "Uzumi can't afford to host it, he's effectively on the run and knows several factions are still gunning for him."

"Which means it will have to be the PLANTs or the Eurasian Federation. And I haven't heard anything from my contacts. So, ergo, it must be the PLANTs." Djibril had a hard smile on his face now. That would not be for a few weeks, so it would be time to move his chess pieces into place.

* * *

"Danny, why are we here again?" 'volunteer' pilot Alan Truman asked as he readied his Blast Impact.

Danny Koji, another volunteer, just rollled his eyes. "We're going to finish smashing the forces around Kyoshung. The Brass wants the ZAFT forces eliminated here." The bright red Sword Calamity was preparing to launch.

The two Biologic CPUs tromped at the head of the 105-Strike Daggers, the jungle muffling their titanic treads.

Alan snickered as he spotted some movement. "There's our ambushers. Man, only some GINNs or DINNs." The Blast Impact raised its two heavy hip hyper-impulse cannons, firing through the intervening trees and cutting a hapless GINN in half. It exploded with deafening force.

Danny just pulled off one of his anti-ship swords and launched himself forward, dodging between two DINNs that tried to bracket him as they rose into the air.

"What? That's no Dagger!" one of the DINN pilots screamed out, just before he was chopped in half.

The other DINN rose higher up into the air, only to be skewered as the Calamity threw his anti-ship sword.

"This is too easy," he complained.

"You're in luck then. You two are being shipped into space. I guess they want you to face off against Orb's forces," their command in his Dagger said over the comlink.

"We're getting a shot at the Abomination? Hell yeah!" Alan exclaimed as he blasted two more GINNs.

"And those ZAFT renegades," Danny said in deep thought. Those were tough foes. But that's why the two young men had volunteered for the Biologic CPU program.

* * *

Flay floated over to where Kira and Lacus were watching the work being done on Freedom and Impact. The two mobilesuits were finally repaired. They were actually just finishing adding its own N-Jammer Canceller nuclear engine. It would not increase its power, per se, but allow it much longer operation time.

"Flay! Good to see you today. I'm hoping the Peace Conference today will make a real difference today." Lacus actually looked happy.

"You and Lord Uzumi have really worked hard to convince everyone to come to the table like this. Kira and I will have to work doubly hard to make sure that no uninvited guests crash the meeting." Flay tried to quell the ugly jealousy within her at Kira being near anyone pretty, female and _not her._

Kira hid his own grin at Flay's not-quite-hidden feelings. The only reason that Flay and Lacus got along even slightly was that Kira had managed to convince Flay that he really only felt fond friendship with the Coordinator. They had shared too many sorrows and burdens now. Maybe in a different life, Kira would have fallen deeply in love with the actress-turned-politician. "We should be out on patrol. Everyone else has been complaining that we've been stealing time in 'their' mobilesuits."

That was when Mu walked up. "It's not uncommon to have more pilots than mobilearmors or fighters. It's a waste to leave it laying around not being used when it could be. Come one, love birds. We've got a job to do."

"Hey! Don't throw any rocks, Mr. Glass-House," Flay jibed back. It was no secret that Mu and the captain of the _Archangel_ were doing their own extra activities, though they were trying to keep things from being public.

Lacus waved goodbye to them all as she headed to the shuttle that would take her over to the _Kusanagi _for the upcoming meeting.

The trio headed out in the Strike, Freedom and Impact out to the meeting point between the PLANTs and Boa. "It looks like that small fleet from the Earth Alliance is still out there," Mu noted. "I sure hope they aren't planning on causing any problems."

The _Archangel_, the _Dominion_, the _Kusanagi _and the _Eternal _were already present. The _Izumo_ had been recalled by the Sahakus for an important escort duty. Lord Uzumi had honestly not known what those two had been up to, but he could not ignore a reasonable request.

A small contingent of ZAFT cruisers was approaching from the direction of the PLANT that shown on the edge of visibility as blue pearls in the distance. Chairman Canaver was actually at the lead of this delegation, having decided that this was too important to relegate to Durandal.

A single 300 meter battleship, the _Paris_, was leading four 130 meter cruisers from the Eurasian Federation. The Foreign Minister of the Eurasian Federation, Louis Hensal, was in charge of his delegation.

Kira was nodding to that as he focused his scanners while the different fleets slowly sidled together. Why have that fleet out there like they were just itching to start a battle? They just did not have enough ships to make a telling difference though. So it did not make any sense.

ZAFT and the Eurasian forces were deploying their own defense perimeter when the _Paris _exploded. The Eurasian 300 meter cruiser had twenty missiles come out of nowhere to hit its weakest spots as it was attacked by a jumpy officer.

"Battle stations!" Murrue called out. "Evade, random course. They must be under Mirage Colloid!" She had been feeling that something bad was about to happen. The _Archangel_ swerved suddenly as its CWIS rolled out just as ten missiles were incoming. Four missiles were evades, five more were swatted down and the last one struck armor.

The Eternal took six heavy hits, evading slightly slower. Aisha scowled at the readouts on the bridge. "Damn them, this is going to destroy the peace!"

Andy frowned from the captain's chair. "That's probably what they want, luv. Launch all mobilesuits. Fire on the course that the missiles fired from!"

On the _Rio Grande_, Eileen Canaver looked over in shock as Captain Gladys ordered the crew to emergency actions. "Find the attackers! Launch all mobilesuits immediately! Tell Banner that I want him to cleanse this area of the Earth Alliance bastards!" she shouted.

"They are _not_ to attack the Eurasian delegation ships," Eileen ordered.

"Fine. Only shoot _back_ at the Eurasians," Talia ordered.

On the bridge of the _Independence_, Captain Taylor looked over the battle as it preceded. "Someone note that I want Captain Birmingham's stripes after this battle. He was supposed to wait for the attack on the _Archangel _and _Dominion_."

"I think he might have run into a mobilesuit patrol and was about to lose the element of surprise, sir."

Taylor just glared at the impertinent bridge officer.

The Earth Alliance fleet dropped the Mirage Colloid as they started launching Strike Daggers in great numbers. It was six Agamemnon-class carrier and their ten Drake escorts. The small Earth Alliance fleet that Kira had been watching in the distance was suddenly maneuvering towards the fight.

"Fire Gottfrieds and Valients on the lead escort!" Natarle shouted. The _Dominion_ shook upon being hit, but the newer battleship was much tougher than the older Agamemnon-class carriers. Those Nelson-class battleships on the other hand had the numbers to deal with the two Archangel class battleship-carriers.

"Captain! Message from Boa. They report that they are under attack and that the Earth Alliance is using some sort of nerve gas missiles," a bridge officer called out on the _Rio Grande_.

"They go too far! Is Providence ready?"

"Just launching now!"

The grim looking Gundam with the huge booster-pack and DRAGOONS screamed out the linear accelerator. "Banner in Providence, launching!" One of the Laurasia-class cruisers exploded as it moved to intercept a focused barrage from the Earth Alliance Fleet.

"This is Athrun in Justice! _Eternity_, can you launch the METEOR unit sfor me and Freedom?"

The _Eternity_ slipped between the _Kusanagi_ and the _Archangel_, disconnecting the Meteor units as the Freedom and Justice lined up, connecting up the nuclear power plants to the massive weapon platforms.

"I so need to get one of those!" Flay shouted, a smile on her lips. Her Impact rocketed in a loop around the Archangel, intercepting a trio of Strike Daggers that found themselves totally outclassed. "That's my ship your are trying to sink, bastards!"

Kira just shook his head, even as he and Athrun sent their Gundams rocketing forward at the regrouping Earth Alliance fleet. On the spherical screen in front of him, below the main window, targets started to be acquired by the Freedom's quantum computers at an insane pace.

Both ZAFT Gundams in their METEOR units blasted out, outright destroying over a dozen Strike Daggers in moments.

"What the hell are those two things? Is that really the sort of weapons that ZAFT is creating?" a hapless pilot shouted.

That was when a new mobilesuit appeared. Flay's eyes narrowed, even as Alan Truman leveled all of the Blast Impact's cannons at the prototype of his own suit. "It's time to die, Abomination!" he shouted.

The original Impact suddenly spun and flipped around as only its upgrade Typhoon double verniers could allow. "Yeah, right. I'm a pro, buddy!"

Alan just gritted his teeth. They had not been kidding that she was an insane pilot. Though he thought the Freedom and Justice were probably more dangerous.

That was when a massive beam of energy washed past this battle, to erase the approaching Earth Alliance reinforcements.

Eileen Carver nodded on the bridge of the _Rio Grande_. "Captain Gladys, open a channel." From the Nazca-class cruiser, her voice carried across all bands. "The PLANTs will always defend ourselves from the aggression of genocidal maniacs with extreme prejudice. We will not bow to have our heads taken by villains with murder in their hearts! ZAFT! Destroy the attacking Earth Alliance forces! No quarter! No surrender!"

The ZAFT forces shouted their approval. Anthony Banner sent the Providence streaking towards a hapless Drake-class cruiser, destroying it in passing as his Dragoons flew off to target a Nelson Battleship. Green beams strobed, cutting it down mercilessly.

The Eternal shuddered under more beams. "Keep fighting! Fight for peace! Fight for your loved ones!" Lacus Clyne ordered. "Pull us in closer to the Archangel. It's the only way we'll survive!"

"Athrun! The _Eternal _is taking a pounding!" Cagalli called out as her Strike Rogue took at a Strike Dagger that was attempting to get behind the slightly ungainly METEOR.

"Kira! We need to clear the enemy from around the Eternal before it sinks!" the coordinator called out. His green eyes were dancing over the targeting screens, the quantum computers barely keeping up with his target acquisition. He was in that state of mind again, living in the perfect moment of combat Zen.

His old friend from Copernicus just answered with his own actions. Andy Waltfield and the rogue ZAFT soldiers in their GINNs were doing their best, but the two super-tech Gundams swept through the area, cleansing it of Strike Daggers and two Drake-class cruisers that were attempting to destroy the lighter-armed _Eternal_.

That was when the Sword Calamity rocketed past the Freedom, its massive anti-ship sword cleaving the main cannons in half. Danny Koji whooped it up. Perfect!

"Kira!" Athrun shouted.

But the Sword Calamity was already streaking towards Justice, meeting it sword to sword. The ex-ZAFT red-jacket would have not thought it possible that any mobilesuit could match his red mobilesuit, much less it and its METEOR.

"Kira! Don't die on me!" Flay shouted even as she sent her grim Impact towards the drifting Freedom, all engines to full.

That was just the distraction that Alan had been waiting on. He unleashed everything he had, but he had miscalculated.

Kira had finally recovered, ejecting the remains of his METEOR unit and had seen the Blast Impact. "FLAY!" he screamed. He would not fail her again. He would always protect her. The SEED of his destiny burst with supernova force within his psyche, distracting Mu La Flaga in the Gundam Strike.

The Freedom rocketed forward, blocking the attacks of the upgraded Impact on his forearm shield.

"I won't let you stop me, Coordinator!" Alan Truman shouting, holding down the triggers on his can. He could overwhelm that unit with firepower!

Kira managed to take most of attacks on his shields, unleashing a return salvo that exploded the Blast Impact with devastating force. But the Freedom was starting to degrade in performance. Armor was cracked and burnt, showing how close to the edge it was to collapse.

In his heightened awareness, he saw two green beams bearing down on Freedom and the Impact from out of nowhere. And he realized that only one of them was going to evade. It was not even a consideration as he flipped the Freedom around and placed it bodily between the Providence's dragoon cannons and the Impact.

The Freedom's head was sheared off, as well as its shield arm and right leg. Gasses vented from six hits on the torso, but it still moved between the attacker and the Impact and its shocked pilot.

"Well, what do you know," Anthony Banner said. "He is willing to throw his life away to protect the Abomination. I'll oblige you then!" The dark-gray Providence roared up, slamming its shield into the Freedom, stunning Kira. "You should have surrendered, kid."

"KIRA! NOOOO!" Flay shouted as she watched the Freedom disintegrate.

The ZAFT pilot smirked. Now to finish of the Impact.

Flay's blue eyes blazed in cold fury as the Impact suddenly charged as her mind went blank of all thoughts but killing the bastard that murdered the love of her life. Time seemed to stand still as Dragoons detached from the Providence. The Orb-refitted quantum computers screamed lock-ons as she fired... at all of the remote weapons. Her shield clashed with the ZAFT's grim reaper of death, but she had already lashed out with a kick that smashed its hip, then thruster-launched its knee into the Providence's face.

"Die." Her words were devoice of all emotion, her will too focused for anger and distraction

The Impact fired three times rapidly into the torso at point-blank range, spearing the torso of the staggered ZAFT unit for the brief second it existed before it exploded in nuclear power.

"Kira!" Cagalli and Athrun shouted as they returned from defending the _Eternal_.

But all that was left was one charred Earth Alliance mobilesuit of the _Archangel_.

The attack had been weathered and only one colony had been gassed.

* * *

It was one month later that ZAFT, the Earth Alliance and the Neutral Nations met in space again. This time, no attacks would happen. Eileen Carver sat across the table from a cowed Earth Alliance Captain Lars. At the head of the table, Uzumi Athha and his daughter presided in the main conference room of the _Izumi _battleship of Orb.

Peace was finally obtained, bitter and tainted as it was. The Earth Alliance would renounce all claims on the PLANTS, transferring them to Orb for the attack on their homeland. Orb would then give over that claim to the PLANTs themselves, but only after handing off total control of Genesis into Orb's hands, though most of the crew would still be ZAFT soldiers.

Even the Earth Alliance was to be allowed observers to guarantee that the massive battlestation would only ever be used in defense.

On the bridge of the Archangel, Captain Murrue stared pensively out the wind. Her old second in command was on her bridge, as the visiting captain of the Dominion. Both of them gave sidelong glances at the auburn-haired woman staring into the stars.

"He would have loved to see this moment," Flay Allster finally said softly.

At her side, Lacus Clyne nodded. "He was a peaceful soul that never wanted to fight. Athrun has been telling me of the stories on the Moon, when they were neighbors."

"What is Athrun going to do now?" she asked morosely.

"He's going to Orb for a while. I think he's trying to decide if he is smitten with Cagalli or not," the ex-singer said with a soft grin.

"What's going to happen with the _Eternal_?" Murrue asked curiously, adjusting her captain's hat carefully in a nervous fidget.

"It will have to be rebuilt. I think I'm going to recommend that it have a few more built in weapons, instead of depending on a mobile force like it was originally designed." Lacus looked frustrated. At least her broken arm had mostly healed, though it twinged.

"Are you going to stay with it as her captain?" Flay asked, thinking forlornly of her lost, long hair.

"No, I think Andy Waltfield will be a far superior captain for the long term. Aisha will keep him out of too much trouble. I might go to Orb for a while, too. It's the only place I'm not wanted or reviled these days."

The Neo-Coordinator nodded, then carefully placed her hand on her stomach. "I think so too. At least for a while. I'm consdered a traitor in the Earth Alliance and ZAFT dislikes the Neo-Coordinators."

Lacus blinked. "Are you- Ah, I'm sorry. I'm sure Cagalli would want us to visit her. I really don't see how she's ever going to survive in politics, she far too straightforward."

"If Uzumi is as wise as everyone says he is, he'll put her in the military and give her biggest, baddest ship and point her at enemies. She'll be the terror of the seven seas and the five skies!" Flay replied with a quirky grin.

Natarle coughed, intruding. "Did you ever overcome that self-hatred problem?"

"How could I hate myself so when the most kind and wonderful man in the world laid his life down for me?"

Murrue breathed a quiet sigh of relief, nodding over to the quiet Mu La Flaga who nodded back.

The End of SEEDs of Discord


End file.
